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90. 
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96. 

97- 
98. 
99. 

100. 

lor. 

102. 

103. 

104. 

105. 

106. 

107. 

108, 
109. 
110. 
III. 

112. 

"3- 
114. 

"5- 
116. 

117. 
118. 
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123. 
124. 
125. 
126, 



Selma....^ 15 

Margaret and her Brides- 
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Science in ShortChapters.20 

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ADaughter of Heth 20 

Right and Wrong Uses of 

the Bible 20 

NightandMoming,Pt.I.i5 
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Shandon Bells 20 

Monica 10 

Heart and Science 20 

The Golden Calf 20 

The Dean's Daughter. . . 20 

Mrs. Geoffrey 20 

Pickwick Papers, Part 1 . 20 
Pickwick PaperSjPart 1 1. 20 

Airy, Fairy Lilian 20 

Macleod of Dare 20 

Tempest Tossed, Part 1. 20 
Tempest Tossed, P't II. 20 
Letters from High Lat- 
itudes. 20 

Gideon Fleyce 20 

India and Ceyloxi 20 

The Gypsy Queen 20 

The. Admiral's Ward 20 

Nimport, 2 Parts, each.. 15 

Harry Holbrooke. 20 

Tritons, 2 Parts, each . . 15 
Let Nothing You Dismay, to 
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Woman's Place To-day. 20 
Dunallan, 2 parts, each. 15 
Housekeeping and Home 

making 15 

No New Things 20 

TheSpoopendykePapers.20 

False Hopes 15 

Labor and Capital 20 

Wanda, 2 parts, each ... 15 
More Words about Bible. 20 
Monsieur Lecocq, P't. 1. 20 
Monsieur Lecocq, Pt. II. 20 
An Outline of Irish Hist. 10 

The Lerouge Case 20 

Paul Clifford 20 

A New Lease of Life ... 20 

Bourbon Lilies 20 

Other People's Money.. 20 

Lady of Lyons 10 

Ameline de Bourg 15 

A Sea Queen 20 

The Ladies Lindores. ..20 

Haunted Hearts 10 

Loys, Lord Beresford* • .20 



127. 

128. 
129. 
130. 

131- 
132. 

133. 

t34. 
^35- 
136. 

137- 
138. 
139' 
140, 
141. 
142. 

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148. 
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150. 

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176. 

177- 
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180. 
181. 
182. 
183. 
184. 
185. 



Under Two Flags, Pt I. 20 
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Money la 

In Peril of His Life 20 

, India; What can it teach 

us ? 20 

Jets and Flashes a^ 

Moonshine and Margue- ^ 

rites -a 

Mr, Scarborough's.; 
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Arden 15 

Tower of Percemont. . . .20 

Yolande 20 

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Pike County Folks 20 

Cricket on the Hearth . . 10 

Henry Esmond 20 

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Denis Duval 10 

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White Wings 20 ! 

The Sketch Book 20 

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Felix Holt 20 

Richelieu 10 

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Tour of the World in 80 

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Love], the Widower. ... 10 
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Faith and Unf aith 20 

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20,000 Leagues Under the 

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Anti-Slavery Days 20 

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Her Mother's Sin 20 

Green Pastures, etc 20 

Mysterious Islandj Pt I.xg 



Social Problems 



BY 



HENRY GEORGE 

AUTHOR OF "progress AND POVERTY," " THE LAND QUESTION," ETC. 



"There is in human affairs one order which is the best. That order is not 
always the one which exists ; but it is the order which should exist for the great- 
est good of humanity. God knows it, and wills it : man's duty it is to discover 
and establish it." — Etnile de Laveleye. 



NEW YORK 
JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY 

14 AND 16 Vesey Street 



I^SfV/ 




Then shall they also answer him^ sayings '■^Loi'd^ when saw we 
thee an hungred^ or athirst, or a stranger^ or nakedy or siek^ or in 
prison^ and did not minister unto thee ? " 

Then shall he anszver themy saying, " Verily I say tinio yoti^ Inas- 
much as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.'''' 

— Matthew 



Copyright, 1883, by Henry George 



TO THE MEMORY 

OF 

FRANCIS GEORGE SHAW. 



"J'^rt," saith tJte Spirit, ''''that they 7nay rest from their labors^ and their 
ivorks do/oUoiv thetnJ'^ 



PREFACE. 



The first eleven chapters of this book are revised 
from articles published in Frank Leslie s Illustrated 
Neivspaper^ during the first half of this year, under the 
title of " Problems of the Time." In the chapters which 
follow, I have more full)^ developed the lines of thought 
there begun. My endeavor has been to present the 
momentous social problems of our time, unincumbered 
by technicalities, and without that abstract reasoning 
which some of the principles of Political Economy re- 
quire for thorough explanation, I have spoken in this 
book of some points not touched upon, or but lightly 
touched upon, in '' Progress and Poverty," but there 
are other points as to which I think it would be worth 
the while of those who may be interested in this book 

to read that. 

HENRY GEORGE. 

Brooklyn, December 7, 1883. 



f9'i 

CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

CHAPTER I. 
The Increasing Importance of Social Questions, . . 7 

CHAPTER II. 
Political Dangers,- .17 

CHAPTER III. 

Coming Increase of Social Pressure, . . . .27 

CHAPTER IV. 

Two Opposing Tendencies, ". . . . . . .37 

CHAPTER V. 
The March of Concentration, 48 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Wrong in Existing Social Conditions, , . .57 

CHAPTER VII. 
Is it the Best of all Possible Worlds? . . . .67 

CHAPTER VIII. 
That we all Might be Rich, . . . . . .79 

CHAPTER IX. 
First Principles, 90 

CHAPTER X. 
The Rights of Man, . loi 

CHAPTER XI. 
Dumping Garbage, 115 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

CHAPTER XII. 
Over-production, 127 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Unemployed Labor, 140 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Effects of Machinery, 150 

CHAPTER XV. 
Slavery and Slavery, 159 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Public Debts and Indirect Taxation, . . . .173 

CHAPTER XVII. 
The Functions of Government, 183 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
What we must do, 207 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The First Great Reform, 216 

CHAPTER XX. 
The American Farmer, 234 

CHAPTER XXI. 
City and Country, 250 

CHAPTER XXII. 
Conclusion, 256 

APPENDIX I. 

The United States Census Report on the Size of Farms. 

Francis A. Walker^ Ph.D., LL.D., and Henry George, . 263 

APPENDIX 11. 
Condition of English Agricultural Laborers. William 

Saunders, ,.....,... 292 

APPENDIX IIL 
A Piece of Land. Francis G. Shaw, ..... 298 



SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE INCREASING- IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 

There come moments in our lives that summon all 
our powers — when we feel that, casting away illusions, 
we must decide and act with our utmost intelligence 
and energy. So in the lives of peoples come periods 
specially calling for earnestness and intelligence. 

We seem to have entered one of these periods. Over 
and again have nations and civilizations been confront- 
ed with problems which, like the riddle of the Sphinx, 
not to answer was to be destroyed ; but never before 
have problems so vast and intricate been presented. 
This is not strange. That the closing years of this cen- 
tury must bring up momentous social questions follows 
from the material and intellectual progress that has 
marked its course. 

Between the development of society and the develop- 
ment of species there is a close analogy. In the low- 
est forms of animal life there is little difference of parts ; 
both wants and powers are few and simple ; movement 
seems automatic ; and instincts are scarcely distin- 
guishable from those of the vegetable. So homogene- 
ous are some of these living things, that if cut in pieces, 



8 SOCIAL PROBLEMS, 

each piece still lives. But as life rises into higher 
manifestations, simplicity gives way to complexity, the 
parts develop into organs having separate functions 
and reciprocal relations, new wants and powers arise, 
and a greater and greater degree of intelligence is need- 
ed to secure food and avoid danger. Did fish, bird or 
beast possess no higher intelligence than the polyp, 
Nature could bring them forth only to die. 

This law — that the increasing complexity and deli- 
cacy of organization which give higher capacity and 
increased power are accompanied by increased wants 
and dangers, and require, therefore, increased intelli- 
gence — runs through nature. In the ascending scale 
of life at last comes man, the most highly and delicate- 
ly organized of animals. Yet not only do his higher 
powers require for their use a higher intelligence than 
exists in other animals, but without higher intelligence 
be could not live. His skin is too thin ; his nails too 
brittle ; he is too poorly adapted for running, climbing, 
swimming, or burrowing. Were he not gifted with in- 
telligence greater than that of any beast, he would per- 
ish from cold, starve from inability to get food, or be 
exterminated by animals better equipped for the strug- 
gle in which brute instinct suffices. 

In man, however, the intelligence which increases all 
through nature's rising scale passes at one bound into 
an intelligence so superior, that the difference seems 
of kind rather than degree. In him, that narrow and 
seemingly unconscious intelligence that we call in- 
stinct becomes conscious reason, and the godlike power 
of adaptation and invention makes feeble man nature's 
king. 

But with man the ascending line stops. Animal life 
assumes no higher form ; nor can we affirm that, in all 



IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 9 

his generations, man, as an animal, has a whit im- 
proved. But progression in another line begins. 
Where the development of species ends, social devel- 
opment commences, and that advance of society that 
we call civilization so increases human powers, that 
between savage and civilized man there is a gulf so 
vast as to suggest the gulf between the highly organ- 
ized animal and the oyster glued to the rocks. And 
with every advance upon this line new vistas open. 
When we try to think what knowledge and power pro- 
gressive civilization may give to the men of the fut- 
ure, imagination fails. 

In this progression which begins with man, as in 
that which leads up to him, the same law holds. Each 
advance makes a demand for higher and higher in- 
telligence. With the beginnings of society arises the 
need for social intelligence — for that consensus of in- 
dividual intelligence which forms a public opinion, a 
public conscience, a public will, and is manifested in 
law, institutions, and administration. As society de- 
velops, a higher and higher degree of this social in- 
telligence is required, for the relation of individuals to 
each other becomes more intimate and important, and 
the increasing complexity of the social organization 
brings liability to new dangers. 

In the rude beginning, each family produces its own 
food, makes its own clothes, builds its own house, and, 
when it moves, furnishes it own transportation. Com- 
pare with this independence the intricate interdepend- 
ence of the denizens of a modern city. They may sup- 
ply themselves with greater certainty, and in much 
greater variety and abundance, than the savage ; but 
it is by the co-operation of thousands. Even the 
water they drink, and the artificial light they use, are 



lo SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

brought to them by elaborate machinery, requiring 
the constant labor and watchfulness of many men. 
They may travel at a speed incredible to the savage ; 
but in doing so resign life and limb to the care of 
others. A broken rail, a drunken engineer, a care- 
less switchman, may hurl them to eternity. And the 
power of applying labor to the satisfaction of desire 
passes, in the same way, beyond the direct control of 
the individual. The laborer becomes but part of a 
great machine, which may at any time be paralyzed by 
causes beyond his power, or even his foresight. Thus 
does the well-being of each become more and more de- 
pendent upon the well-being of all — the individual 
more and more subordinate to society. 

And so come new dangers. The rude society resem- 
bles the creatures that though cut into pieces will live ; 
the highly civilized society is like a highly organized 
animal : a stab in a vital part, the suppression of a sin- 
gle function, is death. A savage village may be burned 
and its people driven off — but, used to direct recourse 
to nature, they can maintain themselves. Highly civ- 
ilized man, however, accustomed to capital, to machin- 
ery, to the minute division of labor, becomes helpless 
when suddenly deprived of these and thrown upon 
nature. Under the factory system, some sixty persons, 
with the aid of much costly machinery, co-operate to 
the making of a pair of shoes. But, of the sixty, not 
one could make a whole shoe. This is the tendency 
in all branches of production, even in agriculture. 
How many farmers of the new generation can use the 
flail ? How many farmers' wives can now make a coat 
from the wool ? Many of our farmers do not even 
make their own butter or raise their own vegetables ! 
There is an enormous gain in productive power from 



IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL QUESTIONS. ii 

this division of labor, which assigns to the individual 
the production of but a few of the things, or even but 
a small part of one of the things, he needs, and makes 
each dependent upon others with whom he never comes 
in contact ; but the social organization becomes more 
sensitive. A primitive village community may pursue 
the even tenor of its life without feeling disasters which 
overtake other villages but a few miles off ; but in the 
closely knit civilization to which we have attained, a 
war, a scarcity, a commercial crisis, in one hemisphere 
produces powerful effects in the other, while shocks 
and jars from which a primitive community easily re- 
covers would to a highly civilized community mean 
wreck. 

It is startlinof to think how destructive in a civiliza- 
tion like ours would be such fierce conflicts as fill the 
history of the past. The wars of highly civilized coun- 
tries, since the opening of the era of steam and machin- 
ery, have been duels of armies rather than conflicts of 
peoples or classes. Our only glimpse of what might 
happen, were passion fully aroused, was in the struggle 
of the Paris Commune. And, since 1870, to the knowl- 
edge of petroleum has been added that of even more 
destructive agents. The explosion of a little nitro- 
glycerine under a few water-mains would make a great 
city uninhabitable ; the blowing up of a few railroad 
bridges and tunnels would bring famine quicker than 
the wall of circumvallation that Titus drew around 
Jerusalem ; the pumping of atmospheric air into the 
gas-mains, and the application of a match, would tear 
up every street and level every house. The Thirty 
Years' War set back civilization in Germany ; so fierce 
a war now would all but destroy it. Not merely 
have destructive powers vastly increased, but the 



12 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

whole social organization has become vastly more 
delicate. 

In a simpler state master and man, neighbor and 
neighbor, know each other, and there is that touch of 
the elbow which, in times of danger, enables society to 
rally. But present tendencies are to the loss of this. 
In London, dwellers in one house do not know those 
in the next ; the tenants of adjoining rooms are utter 
strangers to each other. Let civil conflict break or 
paralyze the authority that preserves order and the 
vast population would become a terror-stricken mob, 
without point of rally or principle of cohesion, and 
London would be sacked and burned by an army of 
thieves. London is only the greatest of great cities. 
What is true of London is true of New York, and in 
the same measure true of the many cities whose hun- 
dreds of thousands are steadily growing toward mil- 
lions. These vast aggregations of humanity, where he 
who seeks isolation may find it more truly than in the 
desert ; where wealth and poverty touch and jostle ; 
where one revels and another starves within a few feet 
of each other, yet separated by as great a gulf as that 
fixed between Dives in Hell and Lazarus in Abraham's 
bosom — they are centres and types of our civilization. 
Let jar or shock dislocate the complex and delicate or- 
ganization, let the policeman's club be thrown down 
or wrested from him, and the fountains of the great 
deep are opened, and quicker than ever before chaos 
comes again. Strong as it may seem, our civilization 
is evolving destructive forces. Not desert and forest, 
but city slums and country roadsides are nursing the 
barbarians who may be to the new what Hun and Van- 
dal were to the old. 

Nor should we forget that in civilized man still lurks 



IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 13 

the savage. The men who, in past times, oppressed or 
revolted, who fought to the death in petty quarrels 
and drunk fury with blood, who burnt cities and rent 
empires, were men essentially such as those we daily 
meet. Social progress has accumulated knowledge, 
softened manners, refined tastes and extended sympa- 
thies, but man is yet capable of as blind a rage as, when 
clothed in skins, he fought wild beasts with a flint. 
And present tendencies, in some respects at least, 
threaten to kindle passions that have so often before 
flamed in destructive fury. 

There is in all the past nothing to compare with the 
rapid changes now going on in the civilized world. It 
seems as though in the European race, and in the 
nineteenth century, man was just beginning to live — 
just grasping his tools and becoming conscious of his 
powers. The snail's pace of crawling ages has sudden- 
ly become the headlong rush of the locomotive, speed- 
ing faster and faster. This rapid progress is primarily 
in industrial methods and material powers. But in- 
dustrial changes imply social changes and necessitate 
political changes. Progressive societies outgrow in- 
stitutions as children outgrow clothes. Social progress 
always requires greater intelligence in the management 
of public affairs ; but this the more as progress is rapid 
and change quicker. 

And that the rapid changes now going on are brino-- 
ing up problems that demand most earnest attention 
may be seen on every hand. Symptoms of danger, 
premonitions of violence, are appearing all over the 
civilized world. Creeds are dying, beliefs are chang- 
ing ; the old forces of conservatism are melting away. 
Political institutions are failing, as clearly in demo- 
cratic America as in monarchical Europe. There is 



14 



SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 



growing unrest and bitterness among the masses, what- 
ever be the form of government, a blind groping for 
escape from conditions becoming intolerable. To at- 
tribute all this to the teachings of demagogues is like 
attributing the fever to the quickened pulse. It is the 
new wine beginning to ferment in old bottles. To put 
into a sailing-ship the powerful engines of a first-class 
ocean steamer would be to tear her to pieces with their 
play. So the new powers rapidly changing all the re- 
lations of society must shatter social and political or- 
ganizations not adapted to meet their strain. 

To adjust our institutions to growing needs and 
changing conditions is the task which devolves upon 
us. Prudence, patriotism, human sympathy, and relig- 
ious sentiment, alike call upon us to undertake it. 
There is danger in reckless change ; but greater danger 
in blind conservatism. The problems beginning to 
confront us are grave — so grave that there is fear they 
may not be solved in time to prevent great catastro- 
phes. But their gravity comes from indisposition to 
frankly recognize and boldly grapple with them. 

These dangers, which menace not one country alone, 
but modern civilization itself, do but show that a higher 
civilization is struggling to be born — that the needs 
and the aspirations of men have outgrown conditions 
and institutions that before sufficed. 

A civilization which tends to concentrate wealth and 
power in the hands of a fortunate few, and to make 
of others mere human machines, must inevitably evolve 
anarchy and bring destruction. But a civilization is pos- 
sible in which the poorest could have all the comforts 
and conveniences now enjoyed by the rich ; in which 
prisons and almshouses would be needless, and chari- 
table societies unthought of. Such a civilization only 



IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL QUESTIONS. 15 

waits for the social intelligence that will adapt means 
to ends. Powers that might give plenty to all are al- 
ready in our hands. Though there is poverty and 
want, there is, yet, seeming embarrassment from the 
very excess of wealth-producing forces. " Give us but 
a market," say manufacturers, *' and we will supply 
goods without end ! " " Give us but work ! " cry idle 
men ! 

The evils that begin to appear spring from the fact 
that the application of intelligence to social affairs has 
not kept pace with the application of intelligence to 
individual needs and material ends. Natural science 
strides forward, but political science lags. With all 
our progress in the arts which produce wealth, we 
have made no progress in securing its equitable dis- 
tribution. Knowledge has vastly increased ; industry 
and commerce have been revolutionized ; but whether 
free trade or protection is best for a nation we are not 
yet agreed. We have brought machinery to a pitch 
of perfection that, fifty years ago, could not have been 
imagined ; but, in the presence of political corrup- 
tion, w^e seem as helpless as idiots. The East River 
bridge is a crowning triumph of mechanical skill ; but 
to get it built a leading citizen of Brooklyn had to 
carry to New York sixty thousand dollars in a carpet- 
bag to bribe New York aldermen. The human soul 
that thought out the great bridge is prisoned in a 
crazed and broken body that lies bed-fast, and could 
only watch it grow by peering through a telescope. 
Nevertheless, the weight of the immense mass is esti- 
mated and adjusted for every inch. But the skill of the 
engineer could not prevent condemned wire being 
smuggled into the cable. 

The progress of civilization requires that more and 



i6 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

more intelligence be devoted to social affairs, and this 
not the intelligence of the few, but that of the many. 
We cannot safely leave politics to politicians, or polit- 
ical economy to college professors. The people them- 
selves must think, because the people alone can act. 

In a "journal of civilization" a professed teacher 
declares the saving word for society to be that each 
shall mind his own business. This is the gospel of 
selfishness, soothing as soft flutes to those who, hav- 
ing fared well themselves, think everybody should be 
satisfied. But the salvation of society, the hope for the 
free, full development of humanity, is in the gospel of 
brotherhood — the gospel of Christ. Social progress 
makes the well-being of all more and more the business 
of each ; it binds all closer and closer together in bonds 
from which none can escape. He who observes the 
law and the proprieties, and cares for his family, yet 
takes no interest in the general weal, and gives no 
thought to those who are trodden under foot, save now 
and then to bestow alms, is not a true Christian. Nor 
is he a good citizen. The duty of the citizen is more 
and harder than this. 

The intelligence required for the solving of social 
problems is not a mere thing of the intellect. It must 
be animated with the religious sentiment and warm 
with sympathy for human suffering. It must stretch 
out beyond self-interest, whether it be the self-interest 
of the few or the many. It must seek justice. For at 
the bottom of every social problem we will find a social 
wrong. 



POLITICAL DANGERS. 17 



CHAPTER II. 

POLITICAL DANGERS. 

The American Republic is to-day unquestionably 
foremost of the nations — the van-leader of modern 
civilization. Of all the great peoples of the European 
family, her people are the most homogeneous, the most 
active and most assimilative. Their average standard 
of intelligence and comfort is higher ; they have most 
fully adopted modern industrial improvements, and are 
the quickest to utilize discovery and invention ; their 
political institutions are most in accordance with mod- 
ern ideas, their position exempts them from dangers 
and difficulties besetting the European nations, and a 
vast area of unoccupied land gives them room to grow. 

At the rate of increase so far maintained, the Eng- 
lish-speaking people of America will, by the close of 
the century, number nearly one hundred million — a 
population as large as owned the sway of Rome in her 
palmiest days. By the middle of the next century — a 
time which children now born will live to see — they 
will, at the same rate, number more than the present 
population of Europe ; and by its close nearly equal 
the population, which at the beginning of this century 
the whole earth was believed to contain. 

But the increase of power is more rapid than the in- 
crease of population, and goes on in accelerating pro- 
gression. Discovery and invention stimulate discovery 
and invention ; and it is only when we consider that the 
industrial progress of the last fifty years bids fair to 
pale before the achievements of the next that we can 
2 



i8 SOCIAL PROBLEMS, 

vaguely imagine the future that seems opening before 
the American people. The centre of wealth, of art, of 
luxury and learning, must pass to this side of the Atlan- 
tic even before the centre of population. It seems as 
if this continent had been reserved — shrouded for ages 
from the rest of the world — as the field upon which 
European civilization might freely bloom. And for 
the very reason that our growth is so rapid and our prog- 
ress so swift ; for the very reason that all the tenden- 
cies of modern civilization assert themselves here more 
quickly and strongly than anywhere else, the problems 
which modern civilization must meet, will here first fully 
present themselves, and will most imperiously demand 
to be thought out or fought out. 

It is difficult for any one to turn from the history of 
the past to think of the incomparable greatness fore- 
shadowed by the rapid growth of the United States 
without something of awe — something of that feeling 
which induced Amasis of Egypt to desolve his alliance 
with the successful Polycrates, because " the gods do 
not permit to mortals such prosperity." Of this, at 
least, we may be certain ; the rapidity of our develop- 
ment brings dangers that can only be guarded against 
by alert intelligence and earnest patriotism. 

There is a suggestive fact that must impress any one 
w4io thinks over the history of past eras and preceding 
civilizations. The great, wealthy, and powerful nations 
have always lost their freedom ; it is only in small, poor, 
and isolated communities that Liberty has been main- 
tained. So true is this that the poets have always sung 
that Liberty loves the rocks and the mountains ; that 
she shrinks from wealth and power and splendor, from 
the crowded city and the busy mart. So true is this that 
philosophical historians have sought in the richness of 



POLITICAL DANGERS. 19 

material resources the causes of the corruption and en- 
slavement of peoples. 

Liberty is natural. Primitive perceptions are of the 
equal rights of the citizen, and political organization 
always starts from this base. It is as social develop- 
ment goes on that we find power concentrating, and 
institutions based upon the equality of rights passing 
into institutions which make the many the slaves of the 
few. How this is we may see. In all institutions which 
involve the lodgement of governing power there is, with 
social growth, a tendency to the exaltation of their func- 
tion and the centralization of their power, and in the 
stronger of these institutions a tendency to the absorp- 
tion of the powers of the rest. Thus the tendency of 
social growth is to make government the business of a 
special class. And as numbers increase and the power 
and importance of each become less and less as com- 
pared with that of all, so, for this reason, does govern- 
ment tend to pass beyond the scrutiny and control of 
the masses. The leader of a handful of warriors, or head 
man of a little village, can only command or govern by 
common consent, and any one aggrieved can readily 
appeal to his fellows. But when the tribe becomes a 
nation and the village expands to a populous country, 
the powers of the chieftain, without formal addition, 
become practically much greater. For with increase of 
numbers scrutiny of his acts becomes more difficult, it is 
harder and harder to successfully appeal from them, and 
the aggregate power which he directs becomes irresis- 
tible as against individuals. And gradually, as power 
thus concentrates, primitive ideas are lost, and the habit 
of thought grows up which regards the masses as born 
but for the service of their rulers. 

Thus the mere growth of society involves danger of 



20 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

the gradual conversion of government into something 
independent of and beyond the people, and the gradual 
seizure of its powers by a ruling class — though not 
necessarily a class marked off by personal titles and a 
liereditary status, for, as history shows, personal titles 
and hereditary status do not accompany the concentra- 
tion of power, but follow it. The same methods which, 
in a little town where each knows his neighbor and mat- 
ters of common interest are under the common eye, 
enable the citizens to freely govern themselves, may, 
in a great city, as we have in many cases seen, enable 
an organized ring of plunderers to gain and hold the gov- 
ernment. So, too, as we see in Congress, and even in 
our State Legislatures, the growth of the country and 
the greater number of interests make the proportion of 
the votes of a representative, of which his constituents 
know or care to know, less and less. And so, too, the 
executive and judicial departments tend constantly to 
pass beyond the scrutiny of the people. 

But to the changes produced by growth are, with us, 
added the changes brought about by improved industrial 
methods. The tendency of steam and of machinery is to 
the division of labor, to the concentration of wealth and 
power. Workmen are becoming massed by hundreds 
and thousands in the employ of single individuals and 
firms ; small storekeepers and merchants are becoming 
the clerks and salesmen of great business houses ; we 
have already corporations whose revenues and pay-rolls 
belittle those of the greatest States. And with this con- 
centration grows the facility of combination among 
these great business interests. How readily the rail- 
road companies, the coal operators, the steel producers, 
even the match manufacturers, combine, either to regu- 
late prices or to use the powers of government ! The 



POLITICAL DANGERS. 21 

tendency in all branches of industry is to the formation 
of rings against which the individual is helpless, and 
which exert their power upon government whenever 
their interests may thus be served. 

It is not merely positively, but negatively, that great 
aggregations of wealth, whether individual or corpo- 
rate, tend to corrupt government and take it out of the 
control of the masses of the people. " Nothing is 
more timorous than a million dollars — except two 
million dollars." Great wealth always supports the 
party in power, no matter how corrupt it may be. It 
never exerts itself for reform, for it instinctively fears 
change. It never struggles against misgovernment. 
When threatened by the holders of political power it 
does not agitate, not appeal to the people ; it buys 
them off. It is in this way, no less than by its direct 
interference, that aggregated wealth corrupts govern- 
ment, and helps to make politics a trade. Our organ- 
ized lobbies, both legislative and Congressional, rely 
as much upon the fears as upon the hopes of moneyed 
interests. When "business" is dull, their resource is 
to get up a bill which some moneyed interest w^ill pay 
them to defeat. So, too, these large moneyed interests 
will subscribe to political funds, on the principle of 
keeping on the right side of those in power, just as the 
railroad companies deadhead President Arthur when 
he goes to Florida to fish. 

The more corrupt a government the easier wealth 
can use it. Where legislation is to be bought, the rich 
make the laws ; where justice is to be purchased, the 
rich have the ear of the courts. And if, for this rea- 
son, great wealth does not absolutely prefer corrupt 
government to pure government, it becomes none the 
less a corrupting influence. A community composed 



22 SOCIAL PROBLEMS, 

of very rich and very poor falls an easy prey to who- 
ever can seize power. The very poor have not spirit 
and intelligence enough to resist ; the very rich have 
too much at stake. 

The rise in the United States of monstrous fortunes, 
the aggregation of enormous wealth in the hands of 
corporations, necessarily implies the loss by the people 
of governmental control. Democratic forms may be 
maintained, but there can be as much tyranny and 
misgovernment under democratic forms as any other — 
in fact, they lend themselves most readily to tyranny 
and misgovernment. Forms count for little. The 
Romans expelled their kings, and continued to abhor 
the very name of king. But under the name of 
Csesars and Imperators, that at first meant no more 
than our '^ Boss," they crouched before tyrants more 
absolute than kings. We have already, under the pop- 
ular name of "bosses," developed political C2esars in 
municipalities and states. If this development con- 
tinues, in time there will come a national boss. We 
are young ; but we are growing. The day may arrive 
when the " Boss of America " will be to the modern 
world what Caesar was to the Roman world. This, at 
least, is certain : Democratic government in more than 
name can only exist where wealth is distributed with 
something like equality — where the great mass of cit- 
izens are personally free and independent, neither fet- 
tered by their poverty nor made subject by their 
wealth. There is, after all, some sense in a property 
qualification. The man who is dependent on a master 
for his living is not a free man. To give the suffrage 
to slaves is only to give votes to their owners. That 
universal suffrage may add to, instead of decreasing, 
the political power of wealth we see when mill-owners 



POLITICAL DANGERS. 23 

and mine-operators vote their hands. The freedom to 
earn, without fear or favor, a comfortable living, ought 
to go with the freedom to vote. Thus alone can a 
sound basis for republican institutions be secured. 
How can a man be said to have a country where he 
has no right to a square inch of soil ; where he has 
nothing but his hands, and, urged by starvation, must 
bid against his fellows for the privilege of using them ? 
When it comes to voting tramps, some principle has 
been carried to a ridiculous and dangerous extreme. 
I have known elections to be decided by the carting of 
paupers from the almshouse to the polls. But such 
decisions can scarcely be in the interest of good gov- 
ernment. 

Beneath all political problems lies the social prob- 
lem of the distribution of wealth. This our people do 
not generally recognize, and they listen to quacks who 
propose to cure the symptoms without touching the 
disease. *' Let us elect good men to office," say the 
quacks. Yes ; let us catch little birds by sprinkling 
salt on their tails ! 

It behooves us to look facts in the face. The exper- 
iment of popular government in the United States is 
clearly a failure. Not that it is a failure everywhere 
and in everything. An experiment of this kind does 
not have to be fully worked out to be proved a failure. 
But speaking generally of the whole country, from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Lakes to the 
Gulf, our government by the people has in large de- 
gree become, is in larger degree becoming, govern- 
ment by the strong and unscrupulous. 

The people, of course, continue to vote ; but the 
people are losing their power. Money and organiza- 
tion tell more and more in elections. In some sections 



24 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

bribery has become chronic, and numbers of voters ex- 
pect regularly to sell their votes. In some sections 
large employers regularly bulldoze their hands into vot- 
ing as they wish. In mujiicipal, State and Federal pol- 
itics the power of the " machinery " is increasing. In 
many places it has become so strong that the ordinary 
citizen has no more influence in the government under 
which he lives than he would have in China. He is, 
in reality, not one of the governing classes, but one of 
the governed. He occasionally, in disgust, votes for 
''the other man," or "the other party;" but, gener- 
ally, to find that he has only effected a change of mas- 
ters, or secured the same masters under different 
names. And he is beginning to accept the situation, 
and to leave politics to politicians, as something with 
which an honest, self-respecting man cannot afford to 
meddle. 

We are steadily differentiating a governing class, or 
rather a class of Praetorians, who make a business of 
gaining political power and then selling it. The type 
of the rising party leader is not the orator or statesman 
of an earlier day, but the shrewd manager, who knows 
how to handle the " workers," how to combine pecuni- 
ary interests, how to obtain money and to spend it, how 
to gather to himself followers and to secure their alle- 
giance. One party machine is becoming complemen- 
tary to the other party machine, the politicians, like 
the railroad managers, having discovered that combi- 
nation pays better than competition. So rings are 
made impregnable and great pecuniary interests secure 
their ends no matter how elections go. There are sove- 
reign States so completely in the hands of rings and 
corporations that it seems as if nothing short of a revo- 
lutionary uprising of the people could dispossess them. 



POLITICAL DANGERS. 25 

Indeed, whether the General Government has not al- 
ready passed beyond the popular control may be 
doubted. Certain it is that possession of the General 
Government has for some time past secured possession. 
And for one term, at least, the Presidential chair has 
been occupied by a man not elected to it. This, of 
course, was largely due to the crookedness of the man 
who was elected, and to the lack of principle in his 
supporters. Nevertheless, it occurred. 

As for the great railroad managers, they may well 
say "The people be d — d!" When they want the 
power of the people they buy the people's masters. 
The map of the United States is colored to show States 
and Territories. A map of real political powers would 
ignore State lines. Here would be a big patch repre- 
senting the domains of Vanderbilt ; there Jay Gould's 
dominions would be brightly marked. In another 
place would be set off the empire of Stanford and 
Huntington ; in another the newer empire of Henry 
Villard ; the States and parts of States that own the 
sway of the Pennsylvania Central would be distin- 
guished from those ruled by the Baltimore & Ohio ; 
and so on. In our National Senate, sovereign members 
of the Union are supposed to be represented ; but what 
are more truly represented are railroad kings and great 
moneyed interests, though occasionally a mine jobber 
from Nevada or Colorado, not inimical to the ruling 
powers, is suffered to buy himself a seat for glory. 
And the Bench as well as the Senate is being filled with 
corporation henchmen. A railroad king makes his at- 
torney a judge of last resort, as the great lord used to 
make his chaplain a bishop. 

We do not get even cheap government. We might 
keep a royal family, house them in palaces like Ver- 



26 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

sailles or Sans Souci, provide them with courts and 
guards, masters of robes and rangers of parks, let them 
give balls more costly than Mrs. Vanderbilt's, and build 
yachts finer than Jay Gould's, for much less than is 
wasted and stolen under our nominal government of the 
people. What a noble income would be that of a Duke 
of New York, a Marquis of Philadelphia, or a Count of 
San Francisco, who would administer the government 
of these municipalities for fifty per cent, of present 
waste and stealage ! Unless we got an Eesthetic Chi- 
nook, where could we get an absolute ruler who would 
erect such a monument of extravagant vulgarity as the 
new Capitol of the State of New York ? While, as we 
saw in the Congress just adjourned, the benevolent 
gentlemen whose desire it is to protect us against the 
pauper labor of Europe quarrel over their respective 
shares of the spoil with as little regard for the tax- 
payer as a pirate crew would have for the consignees 
of a captured vessel. 

The people are largely conscious of all this, and 
there is among the masses much dissatisfaction. But 
there is a lack of that intelligent interest necessary to 
adapt political organization to changing conditions. 
The popular idea of reform seems to be merely a 
change of men or a change of parties, not a change of 
system. Political children, we attribute to bad men or 
wicked parties what really springs from deep general 
causes. Our two great political parties have really 
nothing more to propose than the keeping or the tak- 
ing of the offices from the other party. On their out- 
skirts are the Greenbackers, who, with a more or less 
definite idea of what they want to do with the currency, 
represent vague social dissatisfaction ; civil service re- 
formers, who hope to accomplish a political reform 



COMING INCREASE OF SOCIAL PRESSURE. 27 

while keeping it out of politics ; and antimonopolists, 
who propose to tie up locomotives with pack thread. 
Even the labor organizations seem to fear to go fur- 
ther in their platforms than some such propositions as 
eight-hour laws, bureaus of labor statistics, mechanics ' 
liens, and prohibition of prison contracts. 

All this shows want of grasp and timidity of thought. 
It is not by accident that government grows corrupt 
and passes out of the hands of the people. If we 
would really make and continue this a governnient of 
the people, for the people, and by the people, we must 
give to our politics earnest attention ; we must be 
prepared to review our opinions, to give up old ideas, 
and to accept new ones. We must abandon prejudice, 
and make our reckoning with free minds. The sailor 
who, no matter how the wind might change, should 
persist in keeping his vessel under the same sail and 
on the same tack, would never reach his haven. 



CHAPTER III. 

V COMING INCREASE OF SOCIAL PRESSURE. 

* 

The trees, as I write, have not yet begun to leaf, nor 
even the blossoms to appear ; yet, passing down the 
lower part of Broadway these early days of spring, one 
breasts a steady current of uncouthly dressed men and 
wom.en, carrying bundles and boxes and all manner of 
baggage. As the season advances, the human current 
will increase ; even in winter it will not wholly cease 
its flow. It is the gulf-stream of humanity which sets 
from Europe upon America — the greatest migration of 



28 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

people since the world began. Other minor branches 
has the stream. Into Boston and Philadelphia, into 
Portland, Quebec, and Montreal, into New Orleans, 
Galveston, San Francisco, and Victoria, come offshoots 
of the same current ; and as it flows it draws increas- 
ing volume from wider sources. Emigration to Amer- 
ica has, since 1848, reduced the population of Ireland 
by more than a third ; but as Irish ability to feed the 
stream declines, English emigration increases ; the 
German outpour becomes so vast as to assume the 
first proportions, and the millions of Italy, pressed by 
want as severe as that of Ireland, begin to turn to the 
emigrant ship as did the Irish. In Castle Garden one 
ma}^ see the garb and hear the speech of all European 
peoples. From the fjords of Norway, from the plains 
of Russia and Hungary, from the mountains of Wal- 
lachia, and from Mediterranean shores and islands, once 
the centre of classic civilization, the great current is 
fed. Every year increases the facility of its flow. Year 
by year improvements in steam navigation are practically 
reducing the distance between the two continents ; year 
by year European railroads are making it easier for in- 
terior populations to reach the seaboard, and the tele- 
graph, the newspaper, the schoolmaster, and the cheap 
post, are lessening those objections of ignorance and 
sentiment to removal that are so strong with people 
long rooted in one place. Yet, in spite of this great 
exodus, the population of Europe, as a whole, is stead- 
ily increasing. 

And across the continent, from east to west, frdm 
the older to the newer States, an even greater migra- 
tion is going on. Our people emigrate more readily 
than those of Europe, and increasing as European im- 
migration is, it is yet becoming a less and less impor- 



COMING INCREASE OF SOCIAL PRESSURE. 29 

tant factor of our growth, as compared with the nat- 
ural increase of our population. At Chicago and St. 
Paul, Omaha and Kansas City, the volume of the west- 
ward moving current has increased, not diminished. 
From what, so short a time ago, was the new West of 
unbroken prairie and native forest, goes on, as chil- 
dren grow up, a constant migration to a newer West. 

This westward expansion of population has gone on 
steadily since the first settlement of the Eastern shore. 
It has been the great distinguishing feature in the 
condition of our people. Without its possibility we 
would have been in nothing what we are. Our higher 
standard of wages and of comfort and of average intel- 
ligence, our superior self-reliance, energy, inventive- 
ness, adaptability, and assimilative power, springs as 
directly from this possibility of expansion as does our 
unprecedented growth. All that we are proud of in 
national life and natural character comes primarily from 
our background of unused land. We are but trans- 
planted Europeans, and, for that matter, mostly of the 
" inferior classes." It is not usually those whose posi- 
tion is comfortable and whose prospects are bright who 
emigrate ; it is those who are pinched and dissatisfied, 
those to whom no prospect seems open. There are 
heralds' colleges in Europe that drive a good business 
in providing a certain class of Americans with pedi- 
grees and coats-of-arms ; but it is probably well for 
this sort of self-esteem that the majority of us cannot 
truly trace our ancestry very far. We had some Pil- 
grim Fathers, it is true ; likewise some Quaker fathers, 
and other sorts of fathers ; yet the majority even of the 
early settlers did not come to America for "freedom to 
worship God," but because they were poor, dissatisfied, 
unsuccessful, or recklessly adventurous — many because 



30 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

they were evicted, many to escape imprisonment, many 
because they were kidnapped, many as self-sold bonds- 
men, as indentured apprentices, or mercenary soldiers. 
It is the virtue of new soil, the freedom of opportunity 
given by the possibility of expansion, that has here 
transmuted into wholesome human grow^th material 
that, had it remained in Europe, might have been de- 
graded and dangerous, just as in Australia the same 
conditions have made respected and self-respecting 
citizens out of the descendants of convicts, and even 
out of convicts themselves. 

It may be doubted if the relation of the opening of 
the New World to the development of modern civiliza- 
tion is yet fully recognized. In many respects the dis- 
covery of Columbus has proved the most important 
event in the history of the European world since the 
birth of Christ. How important America has been to 
Europe as furnishing an outlet for the restless, the dis- 
satisfied, the oppressed, and the down-trodden ; how 
influences emanating from the freer opportunities and 
freer life of America have reacted upon European 
thought and life — we can only begin to realize when 
we try to imagine what would have been the present 
condition of Europe had Columbus found only a watery 
waste between Europe and Asia, or even had he found 
here a continent populated as India or China, or Mex- 
ico, were populated. 

And, correlatively, one of the most momentous events 
that could happen to the modern world would be the 
ending of this possibility of westward expansion. That 
it must some time end is evident when we remember 
that the earth is round. 

Practically, this event is near at hand. Its shadow 
is even now stealing over us. Not that there is any 



COMING INCREASE OF SOCIAL PRESSURE. 31 

danger of this continent being really overpopulated. 
Not that there will not be for a long time to come, even 
at our present rate of growth, plenty of unused land or 
of land only partially used. But to feel the results of 
what is called pressure of population, to realize here 
pressure of the same kind that forces European emi- 
gration upon our shores, we shall not have to wait for 
that. Europe to-day is not overpopulated. In Ire- 
land, whence we have received such an immense immi- 
gration, not one-sixth of the soil is under cultivation, 
and grass grows and beasts feed where once were pop- 
ulous villages. In Scotland there is the solitude of the 
deer forest and the grouse moor where a century ago 
were homes of men. One may ride on the railways 
through the richest agricultural districts of England 
and see scarcely as man)?- houses as in the valley of the 
Platte, where the buffalo herded a few years back. 

Twelve months ago, when the hedges were bloom- 
ing, I passed along a lovely English road near by the 
cottage of that " Shepherd of Salisbury Plain " of whom 
I read, when a boy, in a tract which is a good sample 
of the husks frequently given to children as religious 
food, and which is still, I presume, distributed by the 
English Tract Society. On one side of the road was 
a wide expanse of rich land, in which no plow-share 
had that season been struck, because its owner de- 
manded a higher rent than the farmers would give. On 
the other stretched, for many a broad acre, a lordly 
park, its velvety verdure untrodden save by a few light- 
footed deer. And, as we passed along, my companion, 
a native of those parts, bitterly complained that, since 
this lord of the manor had inclosed the little village 
green and set out his fences to take in the grass of the 
roadside, the cottagers could not keep even a goose. 



32 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

and the children of the village had no place to play ! 
Place there was in plenty, but, so far as the children 
were concerned, it might as well be in Africa or the 
moon. And so in our Far West, I have seen emigrants 
toiling painfully for long distances through vacant land 
without finding a spot on which they dared settle. In 
a country where the springs and streams are all inclosed 
by walls he cannot scale, the wayfarer, but for charity, 
might perish of thirst, as in a desert. There is plenty 
of vacant land on Manhattan Island. But on Manhat- 
tan Island human beings are packed closer than any- 
where else in the world. There is plenty of fresh air 
all around — one man owns forty acres of it, a whiff of 
which he never breathes, since his home is on his yacht 
in European waters ; but, for all that, thousands of 
children die in New York every summer for want of it, 
and thousands more would die did not charitable peo- 
ple subscribe to fresh-air funds. The social pressure 
which forces on our shores this swelling tide of immi- 
gration arises not from the fact that the land of Europe 
is all in use, but that it is all appropriated. That will 
soon be our case as well. Our land will not all be used ; 
but it will all be '' fenced in." 

We still talk of our vast public domain, and figures 
showing millions and millions of acres of unappropri- 
ated public land yet swell grandly in the reports of our 
Land Office. But already it is so difficult to find 
public land fit for settlement, that the great majority 
of those wishing to settle find it cheaper to buy, and 
rents in California and the New Northwest run from a 
quarter to even one half the crop. It must be remem- 
bered that the area which yet figures in the returns of 
our public domain includes all the great mountain 
chains, all the vast deserts and dry plains fit only for 



COMING INCREASE OF SOCIAL PRESSURE. 33 

grazing, or not even for that ; it must be remembered 
that of what is really fertile, millions and millions of 
acres are covered by railroad grants as yet unpatented, 
or what amounts to the same thing to the settler, are 
shadowed by them ; that much is held by appropriation 
of the water without which it is useless ; and that much 
more is held under claims of various kinds, which, 
whether legal or illegal, are sufficient to keep the settler 
off unless he will consent to pay a price, or to mortgage 
his labor for years. 

Nevertheless, land with us is still comparatively 
cheap. But this cannot long continue. The stream of 
immigration that comes swelling in, added to our steadi- 
ly augmenting natural increase, will soon now so occu- 
py the available lands as to raise the price of the poor- 
est land worth settling on to a point we have never 
known. Nearly twenty years ago Mr. Wade, of Ohio, 
in a speech in the United States Senate, predicted that 
by the close of the century every acre of good agricul- 
tural land in the Union would be worth at least $50. 
That his prediction will be even more than verified we 
may already see. By the close of the century our pop- 
ulation, at the normal rate of increase, will be over 
forty millions more than in 1880. That is to say, with- 
in the next seventeen years an additional population 
greater than that of the whole United States at the close 
of the civil war will be demanding room. Where will 
they find cheap land ? There is no further West. Our 
advance has reached the Pacific, and beyond the Pacific 
is the East, with its teeming millions. From San Diego 
to Puget Sound there is no valley of the coast-line that 
is not settled or pre-empted. To the very farthest cor- 
ners of the Republic settlers are already going. The 
pressure is already so great that speculation and settle- 
3 



34 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

ment are beginning to cross the northern border into 
Canada and the southern border into Mexico ; so great 
that land is being settled and is becoming valuable that 
a few years ago would have been rejected — land where 
winter lasts for six months and the thermometer sfoes 
down into the forties below zero ; land where, owing to 
insufficient rainfall, a crop is always a risk : land that 
cannot be cultivated at all without irrigation. The 
vast spaces of the western half of the continent do not 
contain anything like the proportion of arable land 
that does the eastern. The "great American desert" 
yet exists, though not now marked upon our maps. 
There is not to-day remaining in the United States any 
considerable body of good land unsettled and unclaim- 
ed, upon which settlers can go with the prospect of 
finding a homestead on Government terms. Already 
the tide of settlement presses angrily upon the Indian 
reservations, and but for the power of the general gov- 
ernment would sweep over them. Already, although 
her population is as yet but a fraction more than six to 
the square mile, the last acre of the vast public domain 
of Texas has passed into private hands, the rush to pur- 
chase during the past year having been such that many 
thousands of acres more than the State had were sold. 
We may see what is coming by the avidity with which 
capitalists, and especially foreign capitalists, who real- 
ize what is the value of land where none is left over 
which population may freely spread, are purchasing 
land in the United States. This movement has been 
going on quietly for some years, until now there is 
scarcely a rich English peer or wealthy English banker 
who does not, either individually or as the member of 
some syndicate, own a great tract of our new land, and 
the purchase of large bodies for foreign account is 



COMING INCREASE OF SOCIAL PRESSURE. 35 

going on every day. It is with these absentee landlords 
that our coming millions must make terms. 

Nor must it be forgotten that, while our population 
is increasing, and our " wild lands "are being appropri- 
ated, the productive capacity of our soil is being 
steadily reduced, which, practically, amounts to the 
same thing as reducing its quantity. Speaking gen- 
erally, the agriculture of the United States is an ex- 
haustive agriculture. We do not return to the earth 
what w^e take from it ; each crop that is harvested 
leaves the soil the poorer. We are cutting down for- 
ests which we do not replant ; we are shipping abroad, 
in wheat and cotton and tobacco and meat, or flushing 
into the sea through the sewers of our great cities, the 
elements of fertility that have been embedded in the 
soil by the slow processes of nature, acting for long 
ages. 

The day is near at hand when it will be no longer 
possible for our increasing population to freely expand 
over new land ; when we shall need for our own millions 
the immense surplus of foodstuffs now exported ; when 
we shall not only begin to feel that social pressure 
which comes when natural resources are all monopo- 
lized, but when increasing social pressure here will in- 
crease social pressure in Europe. How momentous is 
this fact we begin to realize when we cast about for 
such another outlet as the United States has furnished. 
We look in vain. The British possessions to the north 
of us embrace comparatively little arable land ; the 
valleys of the Saskatchewan and the Red River are be- 
ing already taken up, and land speculation is already 
raging there in fever. Mexico offers opportunities for 
American enterprise and American capital and Amer- 
ican trade, but scarcely for American emigration. 



36 Social problems. 

There is some room for our settlers in that northern 
zone that has been kept desolate by fierce Indians ; but 
it is very little. The table-land of Mexico and those 
portions of Central and South America suited to our 
people are already well filled by a population whom 
we cannot displace unless, as the Saxons displaced the 
ancient Britons, by a war of extermination. Anglo- 
Saxon capital and enterprise and influence will doubt- 
less dominate those regions, and many of our people 
will go there ; but it will be as Englishmen go to India 
or British Guinea. Where land is already granted and 
where peon labor can be had for a song, no such emi- 
gration can take place as that which has been pushing 
its way westward over the United States. So of Africa. 
Our race has made a permanent lodgement on the 
southern extremity of that vast continent, but its 
northern advance is met by tropical lieats and the 
presence of races of strong vitality. On the north, the 
Latin branches of the European family seem to have 
again become acclimated, and will probably in time re- 
vive the ancient populousness and importance of Med- 
iterranean Africa ; but it will scarcely furnish an out- 
let for more than them. As for Equatorial Africa, 
though we may explore, and civilize and develop, we 
cannot colonize it in the face of the climate and of 
races that increase rather than disappear in presence 
of the white man. The arable land of Australia would 
not merely be soon well populated by anythiag like 
the emigration that Europe is pouring on America, but 
there the forestalling of land goes on as rapidly as here. 
Thus we come again to that greatest of the continents, 
from which our race once started on its westward way, 
Asia — mother of peoples and religions — which yet con- 
tains the greater part of the human race — millions who 



TIVO OPPOSING TENDENCIES. 37 

live and die in all but utter unconsciousness of our 
modern world. In the awakening of those peoples 
by the impact of Western civilization lies one of the 
greatest problems of the future. 

But it is not my purpose to enter into such specula- 
tions. What I want to point out is that we are very 
soon to lose one of the most important conditions 
under which our civilization has been developing — that 
possibility of expansion over virgin soil that has given 
scope and freedom to American life, and relieved social 
pressure in the most progressive European nations. 
Tendencies, harmless under this condition, may be- 
come most dangerous when it is changed. Gunpowder 
does not explode until it is confined. You may rest 
your hand on the slowly ascending jaw of a hydraulic 
press. It will only gently raise it. But wait a moment 
till it meets resistance ! 



CHAPTER IV. 



TWO OPPOSING TENDENCIES. 



So much freer, so much higher, so much fuller and 
wider is the life of our time, that, looking back, we 
cannot help feeling something like pity, if not contempt, 
for preceding generations. 

Comforts, conveniences, luxuries, that a little while 
ago wealth could not purchase, are now matters of or- 
dinary use. We travel in an hour, easily and comfort- 
ably, what to our fathers was a hard day's journey ; 
we send in minutes messages that, in their time, 
would have taken weeks. We are better acquainted 



38 . SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

with remote countries than they with regions little dis- 
tant ; we know as common things what to them were 
fast-locked secrets of nature ; our world is larger, our 
horizon is wider ; in the years of our lives we may see 
more, do more, learn more. 

Consider the diffusion of knowledge, the quickened 
transmission of information. Compare the school- 
books used by our children with the school-books used 
by our fathers ; see how cheap printing has brought 
within the reach of the masses the very treasures of 
literature ; how enormously it has widened the audience 
of the novelist, the historian, the essayist, and the poet ; 
see how superior are even the trashy novels and story- 
papers in which shop-girls delight, to the rude ballads 
and "last dying speeches and confessions " which were 
their prototypes. Look at the daily newspapers, read 
even by the poorest, and giving to them glimpses of the 
doings of all classes of society, news from all parts of 
the world. Think of the illustrated journals that every 
week bring to the million pictures of life in all phases 
and in all countries — bird's-eye views of cities, of grand 
and beautiful landscapes ; the features of noted men 
and women ; the sittings of parliaments, and con- 
gresses, and conventions ; the splendor of courts, and 
the wild life of savages ; triumphs of art ; glories of 
architecture ; processes of industry ; achievements of 
inventive skill. Such a panorama as thus, week after 
week, passes before the eyes of common men and 
women, the richest and most powerful could not a gen- 
eration ago have commanded. 

These things, and the many other things that the 
mention of these will suggest, are necessarily exerting 
a powerful influence upon thought and feeling. Super- 
stitions are dying out, prejudices are giving way, man- 



TWO OPPOSING TENDENCIES. 39 

ners and customs are becoming assimilated, sympa- 
thies are widening, new aspirations are quickening the 
masses. 

We come into the world with minds ready to receive 
any impression. To the eyes of infancy all is new, and 
one thing is no more wonderful than another. In 
whatever lies beyond common experience we assume 
the beliefs of those about us, and it is only the strong- 
est intellects that can in a little raise themselves above 
the accepted opinions of their times. In a community 
where that opinion prevailed, the vast majority of us 
would as unhesitatingly believe that the earth is a plain, 
supported by a gigantic elephant, as we now believe it 
a sphere circling round the sun. No theory is too 
false, no fable too absurd, no superstition too degrading 
for acceptance when it has become imbedded in com- 
mon belief. Men will submit themselves to tortures 
and to death, mothers will immolate their children, at 
the bidding of beliefs they thus accept. What more 
unnatural than polygamy ? Yet see how long and how 
widely polygamy has existed ! 

In this tendency to accept what we find, to believe 
what we are told, is at once good and evil. It is this 
which makes social advance possible ; it is this which 
makes it so slow and painful. Each generation thus 
obtains without effort the hard-won knowledge be- 
queathed to it ; it is thus, also, enslaved by errors and 
perversions which it in the same way receives. 

It is thus that tyranny is maintained and superstition 
perpetuated. Polygamy is unnatural. Obvious facts 
of universal experience prove this. The uniform pro- 
portion in which the sexes are brought into the world ; 
the exclusiveness of the feeling with which in healthy 
conditions they attract each other ; the necessities im- 



40 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

posed by the slow growth and development of children, 
point to the union of one man with one woman as the 
intent of Nature. Yet, although it is repugnant to the 
most obvious facts and to the strongest instincts, polyg- 
amy seems a perfectly natural thing to those educated 
in a society where it has become an accepted institu- 
tion, and it is only by long effort and much struggling 
that this idea can be eradicated. So with slavery. 
Even to such minds as those of Plato and Aristotle, to 
own a man seemed as natural as to own a horse. Even 
in this nineteenth century and in this '' land of liberty," 
how long has it been since those who denied the right 
of property in human flesh and blood were denounced 
as ''communists," as ''infidels," as "incendiaries," 
bent on uprooting social order and destroying all prop- 
erty rights. So with monarchy, so with aristocracy, so 
with many other things as unnatural that are still un- 
questioningly accepted. Can anything be more un- 
natural — that is to say, more repugnant to right reason 
and to the facts and laws of nature — than that those 
who work least should get most of the things that 
work produces ? " He that will not work, neither shall 
he eat." That is not merely the word of the Apostle ; 
it is the obvious law of Nature. Yet all over the world, 
hard and poor is the fare of the toiling masses ; while 
those who aid production neither with hand nor head 
live luxuriously and fare sumptuously. This we have 
been used to, and it has therefore seemed to us natural, 
just as polygamy, slavery, aristocracy, and monarchy 
seem natural to those accustomed to them. 

But mental habits which made this state of things 
seem natural are breaking up ; superstitions which pre- 
vented its being questioned are melting away. The 
revelations of physical science, the increased knowl- 



TWO OPPOSING TENDENCIES. 41 

edge of other times and other peoples, the extension 
of education, emigration, travel, the rise of the critical 
spirit and the changes in old methods everywhere going 
on, are destroying beliefs which made the masses of 
men content with the position of hewers of wood and 
drawers of water, are softening manners and widening 
sympathies, are extending the idea of human equality 
and brotherhood. 

All over the world the masses of men are becoming 
more and more dissatisfied with conditions under which 
their fathers would have been contented. It is in vain 
that they are told that their situation has been much 
improved ; it is in vain that it is pointed out to them 
that comforts, amusements, opportunities, are within 
their reach that their fathers would not have dreamed 
of. The having got so much only leads them to ask 
why they should not have more. Desire grows by 
what it feeds on. Man is not like the ox. He has no 
fixed standard of satisfaction. To arouse his ambition, 
to educate him to new wants, is as certain to make him 
discontented with his lot as to make that lot harder. 
We resign ourselves to what we think cannot be bet- 
tered ; but when we realize that improvement is possi- 
ble, then we become restive. This is the explanation 
of the paradox that De Tocqueville thought astonish- 
ing : that the masses find their position the more intol- 
erable the more it is improved. The slave codes were 
wise that prescribed pains and penalties for teaching 
bondsmen to read, and they reasoned well who opposed 
popular education on the ground that it would bring 
revolution. 

But there is in the conditions of the civilized world 
to-day something more portentous than a growing 
restiveness under evils long endured. Everything 



42 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

tends to awake the sense of natural equality, to arouse 
the aspirations and ambitions of the masses, to excite a 
keener and keener perception of the gross injustice of 
existing inequalities of privilege and wealth. Yet, at 
the same time, everything tends to the rapid and mon- 
strous increase of these inequalities. Never since 
great estates were eating out the heart of Rome has the 
world seen such enormous fortunes as are now arising. 
And never moi'e utter proletarians. In the paper 
which contained a many-column account of the Van- 
derbilt ball, with its gorgeous dresses and its wealth of 
diamonds, with its profusion of roses, costing ^2 each, 
and its precious wines flowing like water, I also read a 
brief item telling how, at a station-house near by, thirty- 
nine persons — eighteen of them women — had sought 
shelter, and how they were all marched into court next 
morning and sent for six months to prison. "The 
women," said the item, " shrieked and sobbed bitterly 
as they were carried to prison." Christ was born of a 
woman. And to Mary Magdalen he turned in tender 
blessing. But such vermin have some of these human 
creatures, made in God's image, become, that we must 
shovel them off to prison without being too particular. 

The railroad is a new thing. It has scarcely begun 
its work. Yet it has already differentiated the man 
who counts his income by millions every month, and 
the thousands of men glad to work for him at from 90 
cents to $1.50 a day. Who shall set bounds, under 
present tendencies, to the great fortunes of the next 
generation ? Or to the correlatives of these great for- 
tunes, the tramps ? 

The tendency of all the inventions and improvements 
so wonderfully augmenting productive power is to 
concentrate enormous wealth in the hands of a few, to 



TWO OPPOSING TENDENCIES. . 43 

make the condition of the many more hopeless ; to 
force into the position of machines for the production 
of wealth they are not to enjoy, men whose aspirations 
are being aroused. Without a single exception that I 
can think of, the effect of all modern industrial im- 
provements is to production upon a large scale, to the 
minute division of labor, to the giving to the possession 
of large capital an overpowering advantage. Even 
such inventions as the telephone and the type-writer 
tend to the concentration of wealth, by adding to the 
ease with which large businesses can be managed, and 
lessening limitations that after a certain point made 
further extension more difficult. 

The tendency of the machine is in everything not 
merely to place it out of the power of the workman to 
become his own employer, but to reduce him to the 
position of a mere attendant or feeder ; to dispense 
with judgment, skill and brains, save in a few overseers ; 
to reduce all others to the monotonous work of auto- 
matons, to which there is no future save the same un- 
varying round. 

Under the old system of handicraft, the workman 
may have toiled hard and long, but in his work he had 
companionship, variety, the pleasure that comes of the 
exercise of creative skill, the sense of seeing things 
growing under his hand to finished form. He worked 
in his own home or side by side with his employer. 
Labor was lightened by emulation, by gossip, by 
laughter, by discussion. As apprentice, he looked 
forward to becoming a journeyman ; as a journeyman, 
he looked forward to becoming a master and taking 
an apprentice of his own. With a few tools and a lit- 
tle raw material he was independent. He dealt directly 
with those who used the finished articles he produced. 



44 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

If he could not find a market for money he could find 
a market in exchange. That terrible dread — the dread 
of having the opportunities of livelihood shut off ; of 
finding himself utterly helpless to provide for his 
family, never cast its shadow over him. 

Consider the blacksmith of the industrial era now 
everywhere passing — or rather the " black and white 
smith," for the finished workman worked in steel as 
well. The smithy stood by roadside or street. Through 
its open doors were caught glimpses of nature ; all 
that was passing could be seen. Wayfarers stopped to 
inquire, neighbors to tell or hear the news, children to 
see the hot iron glow and watch the red sparks fly. 
Now the smith shoed a horse ; now he put on a wagon- 
tire ; now he forged and tempered a tool ; again he 
welded a broken andiron, or beat out with graceful art 
a crane for the deep chimney-place, or, when there was 
nothing else to do, he wrought iron into nails. 

Go now into one of those enormous establishments 
covering acres and acres, in which workmen by the 
thousand are massed together, and, by the aid of steam 
and machinery, iron is converted to its uses at a frac- 
tion of the cost of the old system. You cannot enter 
without permission from the office, for over each door 
you will find the sign, " Positively no admittance." 
If you are permitted to go in, you must not talk to the 
workmen; but that makes little difference, as amid the 
din and the clatter, and whirr of belts and wheels, you 
could not if you would. Here you find men doing over 
and over the selfsame thing— passing, all day long, bars 
of iron through great rollers ; presenting plates to steel 
jaws ; turning, amid clangor in which you can scarcely 
" hear A^ourself think," bits of iron over and back again, 
sixty times a minute, for hour after hour, for day after 



TIVO OPPOSING TENDENCIES. 45 

day, for year after year. In the whole great establish- 
ment there will be not a man, save here and there one 
who got his training under the simpler system now pass- 
ing away, who can do more than some minute part of 
what goes to the making of a salable article. The lad 
learns in a little while how to attend his particular ma- 
chine. Then his progress stops. He may become gray- 
headed without learning more. As his children grow, 
the only way he has of augmenting his income is by set- 
ting them to work. As for aspiring to become master 
of such an establishment, with its millions of capital in 
machinery and stock, he might as well aspire to be 
King of England or Pope of Rome. He has no more 
control over the conditions that give him employment 
than has the passenger in a railroad-car over the motion 
of the train. Causes which he can neither prevent nor 
foresee may at any time stop his machine and throw 
him upon the world, an utterly unskilled laborer, un- 
accustomed even to swing a pick or handle a spade. 
When times are good, and his employer is coining 
money, he can only get an advance by a strike or a 
threatened strike. At the least symptoms of harder 
times his wages are scaled down, and he can only resist 
by a strike, which means, for a longer or shorter time, 
no wages. 

I have spoken of but one trade ; but the tendency is 
the same in all others. This is the form that industrial 
organization is everywhere assuming, even in agricuU 
ture. Great corporations are now stocking immense 
ranges with cattle, and '* bonanza farms " are cultivated 
by gangs of nomads destitute of anything that can be 
called home. In all occupations the workman is stead- 
ily becoming divorced from the tools and opportunities 
of labor ; everywhere the inequalities of fortune are be- 



46 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

coming more glaring. And this at a time when thought 
is being quickened ; when the old forces of conserva- 
tism are giving way ; when the idea of human equality 
is growing and spreading. 

When between those who work and want and those 
who live in idle luxury there is so great a gulf fixed 
that in popular imagination they seem to belong to 
distinct orders of beings ; when, in the name of religion, 
it is persistently instilled into the masses that all things 
in this world are ordered by Divine Providence, which 
appoints to each his place ; when children are taught 
from the earliest infancy that it is, to use the words of 
the Episcopal catechism, their duty toward God and 
man to ''honor and obey the civil authority," to "order 
themselves lowly and reverently toward their betters, 
and to do their duty in that state of life in which it has 
pleased God to call them ; " when these counsels of hu- 
mility, of contentment and of self-abasement are en- 
forced by the terrible threat of an eternity of torture, 
while on the other hand the poor are taught to believe 
that if they patiently bear their lot here God will after 
death translate them to a heaven where there is no 
private property and no poverty, the most glaring ine- 
qualities in condition may excite neither envy nor in- 
dignation. 

But the ideas that are stirring in the world to-day 
are different from these. 

Near nineteen hundred years ago, when another civ- 
ilization was developing monstrous inequalities, when 
the masses everywhere were being ground into hope- 
less slavery, there arose in a Jewish village an unlearned 
carpenter, who, scorning the orthodoxies and ritual- 
isms of the time, preached to laborers and fishermen 
the gospel of the fatherhood of God, of the equality 



TWO OPPOSING TENDENCIES. 47. 

and brotherhood of men, who taught his disciples to 
pray for the coming of the kingdom of heaven on earth. 
The college professors sneered at him, the orthodox 
preachers denounced him. He was reviled as a 
dreamer, as a disturber, as a " communist," and, finally, 
organized society took the alarm, and he was crucified 
between two thieves. But the word went forth, and, 
spread by fugitives and slaves, made its way against 
power and against persecution till it revolutionized the 
world, and out of the rotting old civilization brought 
the germ of the new. Then the privileged classes 
rallied again, carved the effigy of the man of the peo- 
ple in the courts and on the tombs of kings, in his 
name consecrated inequality, and wrested his gospel 
to the defence of social injustice. But again the 
same great ideas of a common fatherhood, of a com- 
mon brotherhood, of a social state in which none shall 
be overworked and none shall want, begin to quicken 
in common thought. 

When a mighty wind meets a strong current, it does 
not portend a smooth sea. And whoever will think of 
the opposing tendencies beginning to develop will 
appreciate the gravity of the social problems the civi- 
lized world must soon meet. He will also understand 
the meaning of Christ's words when he said : 

'* Think not I a7n come to send peace on earth, I come not 
to send peace ^ but a sword'' 



48 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE MARCH OF CONCENTRATION. 

In 1790, at the time of the first census of the United 
States, the cities contained but 2)'?> ps^' cent, of the 
whole population. In 1880 the cities contained 22.5 
per cent, of the population. This tendency of popu- 
lation to concentrate is one of the marked features of 
our time. All over the civilized world the great cities 
are growing even faster than the growth of popu- 
lation. The increase in the population of England 
and Scotland during the present century has been in 
the cities. In France, where population is nearly sta- 
tionary, the large cities are year by year becoming 
larger. In Ireland, where population is steadily de- 
clining, Dublin and Belfast are steadily growing. 

The same great agencies — steam and machinery— 
that are thus massing population in cities are operat- 
ing even more powerfully to concentrate industry and 
trade. This is to be seen wherever the new forces 
have had play, and in every branch of industry, from 
such primary ones as agriculture, stock-raising, mining 
and fishing, up to those created by recent invention, 
such as railroading, telegraphing, or the lighting by 
gas or electricity. 

It has been stated on the authority of the United 
States Census Bureau that the average size of farms is 
decreasing in the United States. This statement is not 
only inconsistent with facts obvious all over the United 
States, and with the tendencies of agriculture in other 
countries, such as Great Britain, but it is inconsistent 



THE MARCH OF CONCENTRATION. 49 

with the returns furnished by the Census Bureau itself. 
According to the " Compendium of the Tenth Census," 
the increase of the number of farms in the United 
States during the decade between 1870 and 1880 was 
about 50 per cent, and the returns in the eight classes 
of farms enumerated show a steady diminution in the 
smaller sized farms and a steady increase in the larger. 
In the class under three acres, the decrease during the 
decade was about 37 per cent, ; between three and ten 
acres, about 21 per cent. ; between ten and twenty 
acres, about 14 per cent. ; between twenty and fifty 
acres, something less than 8 per cent. With the class 
between 50 and 100 acres, the increase begins, amount- 
ing in this class to about 37 per cent. In the next 
class, between 100 and 500 acres, the increase is nearly 
200 per cent. In the class between 500 and 1,000 acres, 
it is nearly 400 per cent. In the class over 1,000 acres, 
the largest given, it amounts to almost 700 per cent. 

How, in the face of these figures, the Census Bureau 
can report a decline in the average size of farms in the 
United States from 153 acres in 1870 to 134 acres in 
1880 I cannot understand. Nor is it worth while here 
to inquire. The incontestable fact is that, like every- 
thing else, the ownership of land is concentrating, and 
farming is assuming a larger scale.* This is due to 
the improvements in agricultural machinery, which 
make farming a business requiring more capital, to 
the enhanced value of land, to the changes produced 
by railroads, and the advantage which special rates 
give the large over the small producer. That it is an 
accelerating tendency there is no question. The new 

* For a further examination of the Census Report as to the average 
size of farms, see Appendix. 

4 



50 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

era in farming is only beginning. And whatever be its 
gains, it involves the reduction of the great body of 
American farmers to the ranks of tenants or laborers. 
There are no means of discovering the increase of 
tenant farming in the United States during the last 
decade, as no returns as to tenantry were made prior to 
the last census ; but that shows that there were in the 
United States in 1880 no less than 1,024,601 tenant 
farmers.* If, in addition to this, we could get at the 
number of farmers nominally owning their own land, 
but who are in reality paying rent in the shape of in- 
terest on mortgages, the result would be astounding. 

How in all other branches of industry the same pro- 
cess is going on, it is scarcely necessary to speak. It 
is everywhere obvious that the independent mechanic 
is becoming an operative, the little storekeeper a sales- 
man in a big store, the small merchant a clerk or book- 
keeper, and that men, under the old system independ- 
ent, are being massed in the employ of great firms 
and corporations. But the effect of this is scarcely 
realized. A large class of people, including many pro- 
fessed public teachers, are constantly talking as though 
energy, industry, and economy were alone necessary to 
business success — are constantly pointing to the fact 
that men w^ho began with nothing are now rich, as 
proof that any one can begin with nothing and get 
rich. 

That most of our rich men did begin with nothing 
is true. But that the same success could be as easily 
won now is not true. Times of change always afford 
opportunities for the rise of individuals, w^hich disap- 
pear when social relations are again adjusted. We 

* The total number of farmers and planters is given at 4,225,945. 



THE MARCH OF CONCENTRATION. 51 

have not only been overrunning a new continent, but 
the introduction of steam and the application of ma- 
chinery have brought about industrial changes such as 
the world never before saw. 

When William the Conqueror parcelled out England 
among his followers, a feudal aristocracy was created 
out of an army of adventurers. But when society had 
hardened again, a hereditary nobility had formed into 
which no common man could hope to win his way, and 
the descendants of William's adventurers looked down 
upon men of their father's class as upon beings formed 
of inferior clay. So when a new country is rapidly 
settling, thgse who come while land is cheap and in- 
dustry and trade are in process of organization have 
opportunities that those who start from the same 
plane when land has become valuable and society has 
formed cannot have. 

The rich men of the first generation in a new coun- 
try are always men who started with nothing, but the 
rich men of subsequent generations are generally 
those who inherited their start. In the United States 
when we hear of a wealthy man, we naturally ask, 
" How did he make his money ? " for the presumption, 
over tlie greater part of the country, is that he ac- 
quired it himself. In England they do not ordinarily 
ask that question — there the presumption is that he in- 
herited it. But, though the soil of England was par- 
celled out long ago, the great changes consequent 
upon the introduction of steam and machinery have 
there, as here, opened opportunities to rise from the 
ranks of labor to great wealth. Those opportunities 
are now closed or closing. When a railroad train is 
slowly moving off, a single step may put one on it. 
But in a few minutes those who have not taken that 



52 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

Step may run themselves out of breath in the hopeless 
endeavor to overtake the train. It is absurd to think 
that it is easy to step on a train at full speed because 
those who got on board at starting did so easily. So 
is it absurd to think that opportunities open when 
steam and machinery were beginning their concentrat- 
ing work will remain open. 

An English friend, a wealthy retired Manchester 
manufacturer, once told me the story of his life. How 
he went to work at eight years of age helping make 
twine, when twine was made entirely by hand. How, 
when a young man, he walked to Manchester, and hav- 
ing got credit for a bale of flax, made it into twine and 
sold it. How, building up a little trade, he got others 
to work for him. How, when machinery began to be 
invented and steam was introduced, he took advantage 
of them, until he had a big factory and made a fortune, 
when he withdrew to spend the rest of his days at ease 
leaving his business to his son. 

" Supposing you were a young man now," said I, 
'^ could you walk into Manchester and do that again ?" 

^*No," replied he ; "no one could. I couldn't with 
fifty thousand pounds in place of my five shillings." 

So in every branch of business in which the new 
agencies have begun to reach anything like develop- 
ment. Leland Stanford drove an ox-team to Califor- 
nia ; Henry Villard came here from Germany a poor 
boy, became a newspaper reporter, and rode a mule 
from Kansas City to Denver when the plains were 
swarming with Indians — a thing no one with a bank 
account would do. Stanford and his associates got 
hold of the Central Pacific enterprise, with its govern- 
ment endowments, and are now masters of something 
like twelve thousand miles of rail, millions of acres of 



THE MARCH OF CONCENTRATION. 53 

land, steamship lines, express companies, banks and 
newspapers, to say nothing of legislatures, congress- 
men, judges, etc. So Henry Villard, by a series of 
fortunate accidents, which he had energy and tact to 
improve, got hold of the Oregon Steam Navigation 
combination, and of the Northern Pacific endowment, 
and has become the railroad king of the immense do- 
main north of the Stanford dominions, controlling like- 
wise his thousands of miles of road, millions of acres 
of land, his newspapers, political servitors, and liter- 
ary brushers-off of flies, and being able to bring over 
a shipload of lords and barons to see him drive a 
golden spike ; though whether he will be able perma- 
nently to maintain himself against older and greater 
railroad kings remains to be seen. 

Now, it is not merely that such opportunities as 
these which have made the Stanfords and Villards so 
great, come only with the opening of new countries and 
the development of new industrial agents ; but that 
the rise of the Stanfords and Villards makes impos- 
sible the rise of others such as they. Whoever now 
starts a railroad within the domains of either must be- 
come subordinate and tributary to them. The great 
railroad king alone can fight the great railroad king, 
and control of the railroad system not only gives the 
railroad kings control of branch roads, of express com- 
panies, stage lines, steamship lines, etc., not only en- 
ables them to make or unmake the smaller towns, but 
it enables them to '' size the pile " of any one who de- 
velops a business requiring transportation, and to 
transfer to their own pockets any surplus beyond 
what, after careful consideration, they think he ought 
to make. The rise of these great powers is like the 
growth of a great tree, which draws the moisture from 



54 



SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 



the surrounding soil, and stunts all other vegetation 
by its shade. 

So, too, does concentration operate in all businesses. 
The big mill crushes out the little mill. The big store 
undersells the little store till it gets rid of its competi- 
tion. On the top of the building of the American News 
Company, on Chambers Street, New York, stands a 
newsboy carved in marble. As such the managing 
man of that great combination began. But what was 
at first the union of a few sellers of newspapers for 
mutual convenience has become such a powerful con- 
cern, that combination after combination, backed with 
capital and managed with skill, have gone down in the 
attempt to break or share its monopoly. The news- 
boy may look upon the statue that crowns the build- 
ing as the young Englishman who goes to India to 
take a clerical position may look upon the statue of 
Lord. Clive. It is a lesson and an incentive, to be sure ; 
but just as Clive's victories, by establishing the Eng- 
lish dominion in India, made such a career as his im- 
possible again, so does the success of such a concern 
as the American News Company make it impossible for 
men of small capital to establish another such business. 

So may the printer look upon the Tribune building, 
or the newspaper writer upon that of the Hei^ald. A 
Greeley or a Bennett could no longer hope to establish 
a first-class paper in New York, or to get control of one 
already established, unless he got a Jay Gould to back 
him. Even in our newest cities the day has gone by 
when a few printers and a few writers could combine 
and start a daily paper. To say nothing of the close 
corporation of the Associated Press, the newspaper 
has become an immense machine, requiring large cap- 
ital, and for the most part it is written by literary op- 



THE MARCH OF CONCENTRATION. 55 

eratives, who must write to suit the capitalist that con- 
trols it. 

In the last generation a full-rigged Indiaman would 
be considered a very large vessel if she registered 500 
tons. Now we are building coasting schooners of 
1,000 tons. It is not long since our first-class ocean 
steamers were of 1,200 or 1,500 tons. Now the crack 
steamers of the transatlantic route are rising to 10,000 
tons. Not merely are there relatively fewer captains, 
but the chances of modern captains are not as good. 
The captain of a great transatlantic steamer, with 
fifteen hundred lives, and, maybe, two millions of 
property depending on his skill and vigilance, recently 
told me that he got no more pay now than when as a 
young man he commanded a small sailing-ship. Nor 
is there now any "primage," any "venture," any 
chance of becoming owner as well as captain of one of 
these great steamers. 

Under any condition of things short of a rigid sys- 
tem of hereditary caste, there will, of course, always 
be men who, by force of great abilities and happy ac- 
cidents, win their way from poverty to wealth, and 
from low to high position ; but the strong tendencies 
of the time are to make this more and more difficult. 
Jay Gould is probably a smarter man than the present 
Vanderbilt. Had they started even, Vanderbilt might 
now have been peddling mouse-traps or working for a 
paltry salary as some one's clerk, while Gould counted 
his scores of millions. But with all his money-making 
ability Gould cannot overcome the start given by 
the enormous acquisitions of the first Vanderbilt. And 
when the sons of the present great money-makers take 
their places, the chances of rivalry on the part of any- 
body else's sons will be much less. 



56 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

All the tendencies of the present are not merely to 
the concentration, but to the perpetuation, of great 
fortunes. There are no crusades ; the habits of the 
very rich are not to that mad extravagance that could 
dissipate such fortunes ; high play has gone out of 
fashion, and the gambling of the Stock Exchange is 
more dangerous to short than to long purses. Stocks, 
bonds, mortgages, safe deposit and trust companies 
aid the retention of large wealth, and all modern 
agencies enlarge the sphere of its successful employ- 
ment. 

On the other hand, the mere laborer is becoming 
more helpless, and small capitals find it more and 
more difficult to compete with larger capitals. The 
greater railroad companies are swallowing up the 
lesser railroad companies ; one great telegraph com- 
pany already controls the telegraph wires of the con- 
tinent, and, to save the cost of buying up more patents, 
pays the inventors not to invent. As in England, near- 
ly all the public houses have passed into the hands of 
the great brewers, so, here, large firms start young 
men, taking chattel mortgages on their stock. As in 
Great Britain, the supplying of railway passengers 
with eatables and drinkables has passed into the hands 
of a single great company, and in Paris one large res- 
taurateur, with numerous branches, is taking the trade 
of the smaller ones, so here the boys who sell papers 
and peanuts on the trains are employes of companies, 
and bundles are carried and errands run by corpora- 
tions. 

I am not denying that this tendency is largely to 
subserve public convenience. I am merely pointing 
out that it exists. A great change is going on all over 
the civilized world similar to that infeudation which, in 



WROMG IN EXISTING SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 57 

Europe, during the rise of the feudal system, converted 
free proprietors into vassals, and brought all society 
into subordination to a hierarchy of wealth and priv- 
ilege. Whether the new aristocracy is hereditary or 
not maices little difference. Chance alone may deter- 
mine who will get the few prizes of a lottery. But it 
is not the less certain that the vast majority of all who 
take part in it must draw blanks. The forces of the 
new era have not yet had time to make status heredi- 
tary, but we may clearly sec that when the industrial 
organization compels a thousand workmen to take 
service under one master, the proportion of masters to 
men will be but as one to a thousand, though the one 
may come from the ranks of the thousand. " Master ! " 
We don't like the word. It is not American ! But 
what is the use of objecting to the word when we have 
the thing. The man who gives me employment, which 
I must have or suffer, that man is my master, let me 
call him what I will. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE WRONG IN EXISTING SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 

The comfortable theory that it is in the nature of 
things that some should be poor and some should be 
rich, and that the gross and constantly increasing in- 
equalities in the distribution of wealth imply no fault 
in our institutions, pervades our literature, and is 
taught in the press, in the church, in school and in 
college. 

This is a free country, we are told — every man has 



58 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

a vote and every man has a chance. The laborer's son 
may become President ; poor boys of to-day will be 
millionaires thirty or forty years from now, and the 
millionaire's grandchildren will probably be poor. 
What more can be asked ? If a man has energy, in- 
dustry, prudence and foresight, he may win his way to 
great wealth. If he has not the ability to do this he 
must not complain of those who have. If some enjoy 
much and do little, it is because they, or their parents, 
possessed superior qualities which enabled them to " ac- 
quire property" or ''make money." If others must 
work hard and get little, it is because they have not 
yet got their start, because they are ignorant, shiftless, 
unwilling to practise that economy necessary for the 
first accumulation of capital ; or because their fathers 
were wanting in these respects. The inequalities in 
condition result from the inequalities of human nature, 
from the difference in the powers and capacities of 
different men. If one has to toil ten or twelve hours a 
day for a few hundred dollars a year, while another, 
doing little or no hard work, gets an income of many 
thousands, it is because all that the former contributes 
to the augmentation of the common stock of wealth is 
little more than the mere force of his muscles. He 
can expect little more than the animal, because he 
brings into play little more than animal powers. He 
is but a private in the ranks of the great army of in- 
dustry, who has only to stand still or march, as he is 
bid. The other is the organizer, the general, who 
guides and wields the whole great machine, who must 
think, plan, and provide ; and his larger income is only 
commensurate with the far higher and rarer powers 
which he exercises, and the far greater importance of 
the function he fulfils. Shall not education have its 



WRONG IN EXISTING SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 59 

reward, and skill its payment ? What incentive would 
there be to the toil needed to learn to do anything well 
were great prizes not to be gained by those who learn 
to excel ? It would not merely be gross injustice to 
refuse a Raphael or a Rubens more than a house 
painter, but it would prevent the development of great 
painters. To destroy inequalities in condition would 
be to destroy the incentive to progress. To quarrel 
with them is to quarrel with the laws of nature. We 
might as well rail against the length of the days or the 
phases of the moon ; complain that there are valleys 
and mountains ; zones of tropical heat and regions of 
eternal ice. And were we by violent measures to di- 
vide wealth equally, Ave should accomplish nothing but 
harm ; in a little while there would be inequalities as 
great as before. 

This, in substance, is the teaching which we con- 
stantly hear. It is accepted by some because it is flat- 
tering to their vanity, in accordance with their interests 
or pleasing to their hope ; by others, because it is 
dinned into their ears. Like all false theories that ob- 
tain wide acceptance, it contains much truth. But it is 
truth isolated from other truth or alloyed with false- 
hood. 

To try to pump out a ship with a hole in her bottom 
would be hopeless ; but that is not to say that leaks 
may not be stopped and ships pumped dry. It is un- 
deniable that, under present conditions, inequalities in 
fortune would tend to reassert themselves even if ar- 
bitrarily levelled for a moment ; but that does not 
prove that the conditions from which this tendency to 
inequality springs may not be altered. Nor because 
there are differences in human qualities and powers 
does it follow that existing inequalities of fortune are 



6o SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

thus accounted for. I have seen very fast compositors 
and very slow compositors, but the fastest I ever saw 
could not set twice as much type as the slowest, and I 
doubt if in other trades the variations are greater. Be- 
tween normal men the difference of a sixth or seventh 
is a great diiference in height — the tallest giant ever 
known was scarcely more than four times as tall as 
the smallest dwarf ever known, and I doubt if any 
good observer will say that the mental differences of 
men are greater than the physical differences. Yet we 
already have men hundreds of millions of times richer 
than other men. 

That he who produces should have, that he who saves 
should enjoy, is consistent with human reason and with 
the natural order. But existing inequalities of wealth 
cannot be justified on this ground. As a matter of 
fact, how many great fortunes can be truthfully said 
to have been fairly earned ? How many of them repre- 
sent wealth produced by their possessors or those from 
whom their present possessors derived them ? Did 
there not go to the formation of all of them something 
more than superior industry and skill ? Such qualities 
may give the first start, but when fortunes begin to roll 
up into millions there will always be found some ele- 
ment of monopoly, some appropriation of wealth pro- 
duced by others. Often there is a total absence of su- 
perior industry, skill or self-denial, and merely better 
luck or greater unscrupulousness. 

An acquaintance of mine died in San Francisco re- 
cently, leaving $4,000,000, which will go to heirs to 
be looked up in England. I have known many men 
more industrious, more skilful, more temperate than 
he — men w^ho did not or who will not leave a cent. 
This man did not get his wealth by his industry, skill, 



WRONG IN EXISTING SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 6i 

or temperance. He no more produced it than did those 
lucky relations in England who may now do nothing 
for the rest of their lives. He became rich by getting 
hold of a piece of land in the early days, which, as San 
Francisco grew, became very valuable. His wealth 
represented not what he had earned, but what the mo- 
nopoly of this bit of the earth's surface enabled him to 
appropriate of the earnings of others. 

A man died in Pittsburgh, the other day, leaving 
$3,000,000. He may or may not have been particu- 
larly industrious, skilful, and economical, but it was 
not by virtue of these qualities that he got so rich. It 
was because he went to Washington and helped lobby 
through a bill which, b}^ way of " protecting American 
workmen against the pauper labor of Europe," gave 
him the advantage of a sixty per cent, tariff. To the 
day of his death he was a stanch protectionist, and said 
free trade would ruin our "infant industries." Evi- 
dently the $3,000,000 which he was enabled to lay by 
from his own little cherub of an " infant industry " did 
not represent what he had added to production. It 
was the advantage given him by the tariff that enabled 
him to scoop it up from other people's earnings. 

This element of monopoly, of appropriation and 
spoliation will, when we come to analyze them, be 
found to largely account for all great fortunes. 

There are two classes of men who are always talking 
as though great fortunes resulted from the power of 
increase belonging to capital — -those who declare that 
present social adjustments are all right ; and those who 
denounce capital and insist that interest should be 
abolished. The typical rich man of the one set is he 
who, saving his earnings, devotes the surplus to aiding 
production, and becomes rich by the natural growth 



62 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

of his capital. The other set make calculations of the 
enormous sum a dollar put out at six per cent, com- 
pound interest will amount to in a hundred years, and 
say we must abolish interest if we would prevent the 
growth of great fortunes. 

But I think it dijfficult to instance any great fortune 
really due to the legitimate growth of capital obtained 
by industry. 

The great fortune of the Rothschilds springs from 
the treasure secured by the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel 
by selling his people to England to fight against our 
forefathers in their struggle for independence. It be- 
gan in the blood-money received by this petty tyrant 
from greater tyrants as the price of the lives of his 
subjects. It has grown to its present enormous dimen- 
sions by the jobbing of loans raised by European kings 
for holding in subjection their people and waging de- 
structive wars upon each other. It no more represents 
the earnings of industry or of capital than do the sums 
now being wrung by England from the poverty-stricken 
fellahs of Egypt to pay for the enormous profits on 
loans to the Khedive, which he wasted on palaces, 
)^achts, harems, ballet-dancers, and cart-loads of dia- 
monds such as he gave to the Shermans. 

The great fortune of the Duke of Westminster, the 
richest of the rich men in England, is purely the result 
of appropriation. It no more springs from the earn- 
ings of the present Duke of Westminster or any of his 
ancestors than did the great fortunes bestowed by 
Russian monarchs on their favorites when they gave 
them thousands of the Russian people as their serfs. 
An English king, long since dead, gave to an ancestor 
of the present Duke of Westminster a piece of land 
over which the city of London has now extended — that 



WRONG IN EXISTING SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 63 

is to say, he gave him the privilege, still recognized by 
the stupid English people, which enables the present 
duke to appropriate so much of the earnings of so many 
thousands of the present generation of Englishmen. 

So, too, the great fortunes of the English brewers 
and distillers have been largely built up by the opera- 
tion of the excise in fostering monopoly and concentrat- 
ing the business. 

Or, turning again to the United States, take the 
great fortune of the Astors. It represents for the 
most part a similar appropriation of the earnings of 
others, as does the income of the Duke of Westminster 
and other English landlords. The first Astor made an 
arrangement with certain people living in his time by 
virtue of which his children are now allowed to tax 
other people's children — to demand a very large part of 
their earnings from many thousands of the present 
population of New York. Its main element is not pro- 
duction or saving. No human being can produce land 
or lay up land. If the Astors had all remained in Ger- 
many, or if there had never been any Astors, the land 
of Manhattan Island would have been here all the 
same. 

Take the great Vanderbilt fortune. The first Van- 
derbilt was a boatman who earned money by hard work 
and saved it. But it was not working and saving that 
enabled him to leave such an enormous fortune. It 
was spoliation and monopoly. As soon as he got 
money enough he used it as a club to extort from oth- 
ers their earnings. He ran off opposition lines and 
monopolized routes of steamboat travel. Then he went 
into railroads, pursuing the same tactics. The Van- 
derbilt fortune no more comes from working and sav- 
ing than did the fortune that Captain Kidd buried. 



64 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

Or take the great Gould fortune. Mr. Gould might 
have got his first little start by superior industry and 
superior self-denial. But it is not that which has made 
him the master of a hundred millions. It was by wreck- 
ing railroads, buying judges, corrupting legislatures, 
getting up rings and pools and combinations to raise 
or depress stock values and transportation rates. 

So, likewise, of the great fortunes which the Pacific 
railroads have created. They have been made by lob- 
bying through profligate donations of lands, bonds and 
subsidies, by the operations of Credit Mobilier and 
Contract and Finance Companies, by monopolizing 
and gouging. And so of fortunes made by such com- 
binations as the Standard Oil Company, the Bessemer 
Steel Ring, the Whisky Tax Ring, the Lucifer Match 
Ring, and the various rings for the " protection of the 
American workman from the pauper labor of Europe." 

Or take the fortunes made out of successful patents. 
Like that element in so many fortunes that comes 
from the increased value of land, . these result from 
monopoly, pure and simple. And though I am not 
now discussing the expediency of patent laws, it may 
be observed, in passing, that in the vast majority of 
cases the men who make fortunes out of patents are 
not the men who make the inventions. 

Through all great fortunes, and, in fact, through 
nearly all acquisitions that in these days can fairly be 
termed fortunes, these elements of monopoly, of spoli- 
ation, of gambling run. The head of one of the larg- 
est manufacturing firms in the United States said to 
me recently, " It is not on our ordinary business that 
we make our money ; it is where we can get a monop- 
oly." And this, I think, is generally true. 

Consider the important part in building up fortunes 



WRONG IN- EXISTING SOCIAL CONDITIONS. 65 

which the increase of land values has had, and is hav- 
ing, in the United States. This is, of course, monop- 
oly, pure and simple. When land increases in value it 
does not mean that its owner has added to the general 
wealth. The owner may never have seen the land or 
done aught to improve it. He may, and often does, 
live in a distant city or in another country. Increase 
of land values simply means that the owners, by virtue 
of their appropriation of something that existed before 
man was, have the power of taking a larger share of 
the wealth produced by other people's labor. Consider 
how much the monopolies created and the advantages 
given to the unscrupulous by the tariff and by our sys- 
tem of internal taxation — how much the railroad (a 
business in its nature a monopoly), telegraph, gas, water 
and other similar monopolies, have done to concentrate 
wealth ; how special rates, pools, combinations, cor- 
ners, stock-watering and stock-gambling, the destruc- 
tive use of wealth in driving off or buying off opposition 
which the public must finally pay for, and many other 
things which these will suggest, have operated to build 
up large fortunes, and it will at least appear that the 
unequal distribution of wealth is due in great measure 
to sheer spoliation ; that the reason why those v/lio 
work hard get so little, while so many who work little 
get so much, is, in very large measure, that the earn- 
ings of the one class are, in one way or another, filched 
away from them to swell the incomes of the other. 

That individuals are constantly making their way 
from the ranks of those who get less than their earn- 
ings to the ranks of those who get more than their 
earnings, no more proves this state of things right than 
the fact that merchant sailors were constantly becom- 
ing pirates and participating in the profits of piracy, 
5 



66 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

would prove that piracy was right and that no effort 
should be made to suppress it. 

I am not denouncing the rich, nor seeking, by speak- 
ing of these things, to excite envy and hatred ; but if 
we would get a clear understanding of social prob- 
lems, we must recognize the fact that it is to monopo- 
lies which we permit and create, to advantages which 
we give one man over another, to methods of extortion 
sanctioned by law and by public opinion, that some 
men are enabled to get so enormously rich w^hile others 
remain so miserably poor. If we look around us and 
note the elements of monopoly, extortion and spolia- 
tion which go to the building up of all, or nearly all, 
fortunes, v/e see on the one hand how disingenuous 
are those who preach to us that there is nothing wrong 
in social relations and that the inequalities in the dis- 
tribution of wealth spring from the inequalities of hu- 
man nature ; and on the other hand, we see how wild 
are those who talk as though capital were a public 
enemy, and propose plans for arbitrarily restricting the 
acquisition of wealth. Capital is a good ; the capitalist 
is a helper, if he is not also a monopolist. We can 
safely let any one get as rich as he can if he will not 
despoil others in doing so. 

There are deep wrongs in the present constitution of 
society, but they are not wrongs inherent in the consti- 
tution of man nor in those social laws which are as 
truly the laws of the Creator as are the laws of the phy- 
sical universe. They are wrongs resulting from bad ad- 
justments which it is within our power to amend. The 
ideal social state is not that in which each gets an equal 
amount of wealth, but in which each gets in proportion 
to his contribution to the general stock. And in such 
a social state there would not be less incentive to exer- 



IS IT THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS? 67 

tion than now ; there would be far more incentive. 
Men will be more industrious and more moral, better 
workmen and better citizens, if each takes his earnings 
and carries them home to his family, than where they 
put their earnings in a pot and gamble for them until 
some have far more than they could have earned, and 
others have little or nothing. 



CHAPTER VII. 

IS IT THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS ? 

There are worlds and worlds — even within the bounds 
of the same horizon. The man who comes into New 
York with plenty of money, who puts up at the Wind- 
sor or Brunswick, and is received by hospitable hosts 
in Fifth Avenue mansions, sees one New York. The 
man who comes with a dollar and a half, and goes to a 
twenty-five-cent lodging-house sees another. There are 
also fifteen-cent lodging-houses, and people too poor to 
go even to them. 

Into the pleasant avenues of the Park, in the bright 
May sunshine, dashes the railroad-wrecker's daughter, 
her tasty riding-habit floating free from the side of her 
glistening bay, and her belted groom, in fresh top-boots 
and smart new livery, clattering after, at a respectful 
distance, on another blooded horse, that chafes at the 
bit. The stock-gambler's son, rising from his trotter 
at every stride, in English fashion, his English riding- 
stick grasped by the middle, raises his hat to her nod. 
And as he whirls past in his London-made dog-cart, a 
liveried servant sitting with folded arms behind him, 



68 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

she exchanges salutations with the high-born descend- 
ant of the Dutch gardener, whose cabbage-patch, now 
covered with brick and mortar, has become an " estate " 
of lordly income. While in the soft, warm air rings a 
musical note, and drawn by mettled steeds, the four-in- 
hands of the coaching-club rush by, witli liveried guards 
and coach-tops filled with chattering people, to whom 
life, with its round of balls, parties, theatres, flirtations 
and excursions, is a holiday, in which, but for the in- 
vention of new pleasures, satiety would make time drag. 

How different this bright world from that of the old 
woman who, in the dingy down-town street, sits from 
morning to night beside her little stock of apples and 
candy ; from that of the girls who stand all day behind 
counters and before looms, who bend over sewing-ma- 
chines for weary, weary hours, or who come out at 
night to prowl the streets ! 

One railroad king puts the great provinces of his 
realm in charge of satraps and goes to Europe ; the 
new steel yacht of another is being fitted, regardless 
of expense, for a voyage around the world, if it pleases 
him to take it ; a third will not go abroad — he is too 
busy buying in his "little old railroad" every day. 
Other human beings are gathered into line every Sun- 
day afternoon by the Rev. Coffee-and-rolls-man, and 
listen to his preaching for the dole they are to get. 
And upon the benches in the squares set men from 
whose sullen, deadened faces the fire of energy and the 
light of hope have gone — " tramps " and " bums," the 
broken, rotted, human driftwood, the pariahs of our 
society. 

I stroll along Broadway in the evening, and by the 
magnificent saloon of the man who killed Jim Fisk, I 
meet a good fellow whom I knew years ago in Califor- 



IS IT THE BEST OF ALT POSSIBIE WORLDS? 69 

nia, when he could not jingle more than one dollar on 
another. It is different now, and he takes a wad of 
bills from his pocket to pay for the thirty-five-cent 
cigars we light Fie has rooms in the most costly of 
Broadway hotels, his clothes are cut by Blissert, and 
he thinks Delmonico's about the only place to get a 
decent meal. He tells me about some '''big things" 
he has got into, and talks about millions as^.though they 
were marbles. If a man has any speed in him at all, 
he says, it is just as easy to deal in big things as in 
little things, and the men who play such large hands 
in the great game are no smarter than other men when 
you get alongside of them and take their measure. 
As to politics, he says, it is only a question who hold 
the offices. The corporations rule the country, and 
are going to rule it, and the man is a fool who don't 
get on their side. As for the people, what do they 
know or care ! The press rules the people, and capital 
rules the press. Better hunt with the dogs than be 
hunted with the hare. 

We part, and as I turn down the street another ac- 
quaintance greets me, and, as his conversation grows 
interesting, I go out of my way, for to delay him were 
sin, as he must be at work by two in the morning. He 
has been trying to read "Progress and Poverty," he 
says : but he has to take it in such little snatches, and 
the children make such a noise in his two small rooms 
— for his wife is afraid to let them out on the street to 
learn so much bad — that it is hard work to understand 
some parts of it. He is a journeyman baker, and has 
a good situation as journeymen bakers go. He works 
in a restaurant, and only twelve hours a day. Most 
bakers, he tells me, have to work fourteen and sixteen 
hours. Some of the places they work in would sicken 



70 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

a man not used to it, and even those used to it are 
forced to lie off every now and again, and to drink, or 
they could not stand it. In some bakeries they use 
good stock, he says, but they have to charge high 
prices, which only the richer people will pay. In most 
of them you often have to sift the maggots out of the 
flour, and the butter is always rancid. He belongs to 
a Union, and they are trying to get in all the journey- 
men bakers ; but those that work longest, and have 
most need of it, are the hardest to get. Their long 
hours make them stupid, and take all the spirit out of 
them. He has tried to get into business for himself, 
and he and his wife once pinched and saved till they 
got a few hundred dollars, and then set up a little shop. 
But he had not money enough to buy a share in the 
Flour Association — a co-operative association of boss 
bakers, by which the members get stock at lowest rates 
— and he could not compete, lost his money, and had 
to go to work again as a journeyman. He can see no 
chance at all of getting out of it, he sa3^s ; he some- 
times thinks he might as well be a slave. His family 
grows larger and it costs more to keep them. His rent 
was raised two dollars on the ist of May. His wife re- 
monstrated with the agent, said they were making no 
more, and it cost them more to live. The agent said 
he could not help that ; the property had increased in 
value, and the rents must be raised. The reason peo- 
ple complained of rents was that they lived too extrav- 
agantly, and thought they must have everything any- 
body else had. People could live, and keep strong 
and fat, on nothing but oatmeal. If they would do 
that they would find it easy enough to pay their rent. 

There is such a rush across the Atlantic that it is 
difficult to engage a passage for months ahead. The 



IS IT THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS? 71 

doors of the fine, roomy houses in the fashionable 
streets will soon be boarded up, as their owners leave 
for Europe, for the seashore, or the mountains. 
*' Everybody is out of town," they will say. Not quite 
everybody, though. Some twelve or thirteen hundred 
thousand people, without counting Brooklyn, will be 
left to swelter through the hot summer. The swarm- 
ing tenement-houses will not be boarded up ; every 
window and door will be open to catch the least breath 
of air. The dirty streets will be crawling with squalid 
life, and noisy with the play of unkempt children, who 
never saw a green field or watched the curl of a breaker, 
save, perhaps, when charity gave them a treat. Tired 
women w411 be striving to quiet pining babies, sobbing 
and wailing away their little lives for the want of 
wholesome nourishment and fresh air ; and degrada- 
tion and misery that hides during the winter will show 
itself on every hand. 

In such a city as this, the world of some is as differ- 
ent from the world in which others live as Jupiter may 
be from Mars. There are worlds we shut our eyes to, 
and do not bear to think of, still less to look at, but 
in which human beings yet live — worlds in which vice 
takes the place of virtue, and from which hope here 
and hope hereafter seem utterly banished — brutal, 
discordant, torturing hells of wickedness and suffer- 
ing. 

** Why do they cry for bread ? " asked the innocent 
French princess, as the roar of the fierce, hungry mob 
resounded through the courtyard of Versailles. " If 
they have no bread, why don't they eat cake ? " 

Yet, not a fool above other fools was the pretty prin- 
cess, who never in her whole life had known that cake 
was not to be had for the asking. " Why are not the 



72 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

poor thrifty and virtuous and wise and temperate ? " 
one hears whenever in luxurious parlors such subjects 
are mentioned. What is this but the question of the 
French princess ? Thrift and virtue and wisdom and 
temperance are not the fruits of poverty. 

But it is not this of which I intended here to speak 
so much as of that complacent assumption which runs 
through current thought and speech, that this world 
in which we, nineteenth century, Christian, American 
men and women live, is, in its social adjustments, at 
least, about such a world as the Almighty intended it 
to be. 

Some say this in terms, others say it by implication, 
but in one form or another it is constantly taught. 
Even the wonders of modern invention have, with a 
most influential part of society, scarcely shaken the be- 
lief that social improvement is impossible. Men of the 
sort who, a little while ago, derided the idea that steam- 
carriages might be driven over the land and steam-ves- 
sels across the sea, would not now refuse to believe in 
the most startling mechanical invention. But he who 
thinks society may be improved, he who thinks that 
poverty and greed may be driven from the world, is 
still looked upon in circles that pride themselves on 
their culture and rationalism as a dreamer, if not as a 
dangerous lunatic. 

The old idea that everything in the social world is 
ordered by the Divine Will — that jt is the mysterious 
dispensations of Providence that give wealth to the few 
and order poverty as the lot of the many, make some 
rulers and the others serfs — is losing power ; but an- 
other idea that serves the same purpose is taking its 
place, and we are told, in the name of science, that the 
only social improvement that is possible is by a slow 



/S IT THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS? 73 

race evolution, of which the fierce struggle for existence 
is the impelling force ; that, as I have recently read in 
*'a journal of civilization" from the pen of a man who 
has turned from the preaching of what he called Chris- 
tianity to the teaching of what he calls political econ- 
omy, that " only the elite of the race has been raised to 
the point where reason and conscience can even curb 
the lower motive forces," and ''that for all but a few 
of us the limit of attainment in life, in the best case, is 
to live out our term, to pay our debts, to place three or 
four children in a position as good as the father's was, 
and there make the account balance." As for "friends 
of humanity," and those who would "help the poor," 
they get from him the same scorn which the Scribes 
and Pharisees eighteen hundred years ago visited on a 
pestilent social reformer whom they finally crucified. 

Lying beneath all such theories is the selfishness that 
would resist any inquiry into the titles to the wealth 
which greed has gathered, and the difficulty and in- 
disposition on the part of the comfortable classes of 
realizing the existence of any other world than that 
seen through their own eyes. 

"That one-half of the world does not know how the 
other half live," is much more true of the upper than 
of the lower half. We look upon that which is pleasant 
rather than that which is disagreeable. The shop-girl 
delights in the loves of the Lord de Maltravers and the 
Lady Blanche, just as children without a penny will 
gaze in c(5nfectioners' windows, as hungry men dream 
of feasts, and poor men relish tales of sudden wealth. 
And social suffering is for the most part mute. The 
well-dressed take the main street, but the ragged slink 
into the by-ways. The man in a good coat will be lis- 
tened to where the same man in tatters would be hus- 



74 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

tied off. It is that part of society that has the best rea- 
son to be satisfied with things as they are that is heard 
in the press, in the church, and in the school, and that 
forms the conventional opinion that this world in which 
we American Christians, in the latter half of the nine- 
teenth century, live is about as good a world as the 
Creator (if there is a Creator) intended it should be. 

But look around. All over the world the beauty and 
the glory and the grace of civilization rests on human 
lives crushed into misery and distortion. 

I will not speak of Germany, of France, of England. 
Look even here, where European civilization flowers 
in the free field of a new continent ; where there are 
no kings, no great standing armies, no relics of feudal 
servitude ; where national existence began with the 
solemn declaration of the equal and inalienable rights 
of men. I clip, almost at random, from a daily paper, 
for I am not seeking the blackest shadows : 

Margaret Hickey, aged 30 years, came to this city a few days ago 
from Boston with a seven-week-old baby. She tried to get work, but 
was not successful. Saturday night she placed the child in a cellar at 
No. 226 West Forty-second Street. At midnight she called at Police 
Headquarters and said she had lost her baby in Forty-third Street. 
In the meantime an officer found the child. The mother was held until 
yesterday morning, when she was taken to the Yorkville Court and sent 
to the Island for six months. 

Morning and evening, day after day, in these times 
of peace and prosperity, one may read in our daily 
papers such items as this, and worse than this. We 
are so used to them that they excite no attention and no' 
comment. We know what the fate of Margaret Hickey, 
aged thirty years, and of her baby, aged seven weeks, 
sent to the Island for six months, will be. Better for 
them and better for society were they drowned outright, 



IS IT THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS? 75 

as we would drown a useless cat and mangy kitten ; but 
so common are such items that we glance at them as 
we glance at the number of birds wounded at a pigeon- 
match, and turn to read ''what is going on in society ; " 
of the last new opera or play ; of the cottages taken fcjr 
the season at Newport or Long Branch ; of the million- 
aire's divorce or the latest great defalcation ; how Heber 
Newton is to be fired out of the Episcopal Church for 
declaring the Song of Solomon a love-drama, and the 
story of Jonah and the whale a poetical embellishment ; 
or how the great issue which the American people are 
to convulse themselves about next year is the turning 
of Republican office-holders out to put Democratic 
office-seekers in. 

I read the other day in a Brooklyn paper of a coro- 
ner's jury summoned to inquire, as the law directs, into 
the cause of death of a two-days' infant. The unwhole- 
some room was destitute of everything save a broken 
chair, a miserable bed and an empty whisk3"-bottle. On 
the bed lay, uncared for, a young girl, mother of the 
dead infant ; over the chair, in drunken stupor, sprawled 
a man — her father. "The horror-stricken jury," said 
the report, "rendered a verdict in accordance with the 
facts, and left the place as fast as they could." So do 
we turn from these horrors. * Are there not policemen 
and station-houses, almshouses and charitable societies? 

Nevertheless, we send missionaries to the heathen ; 
and I read the other day how the missionaries, sent to 
preach to the Hindoos the Baptist version of Christ's 
Gospel, had been financed out of the difference between 
American currency and Indian rupees by the godly 
men who stay at home and boss the job. Yet, from Arc- 
tic to Antarctic Circle, where are the heathen among 
whom such degraded and distorted human beings are 



76 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

to be found as in our centres of so-called Christian 
civilization, where we have such a respect for the all- 
seeing eye of God that if you want a drink on Sunday 
you must go into the saloon by the back door ? Among 
what tribe of savages, who never saw a missionary, can 
the cold-blooded horrors testified to in the Tewksbury 
Almshouse investigation be matched ? " Babies don't 
generally live long here," they told the farnier's wife 
who brought them a little waif. And neither did they 
— seventy-three out of seventy-four dying in a few 
weeks, their little bodies sold off at a round rate per 
dozen to the dissecting table, and a six-months' infant 
left there two days losing three pounds in weight. Nor 
did adults — the broken men and women who there 
sought shelter — fare better. They were robbed, starved, 
beaten, turned into marketable corpses as fast as possi- 
ble, while the highly respectable managers waxed fat and 
rich, and set before legislative committees the best of 
dinners and the choicest of wines. It were slander to 
dumb brutes to speak of the bestial cruelty disclosed 
by the opening of this whited sepulchre. Yet, not only 
do the representatives of the wealth and culture and 
"high moral ideas" of Massachusetts receive coldly 
these revelations, they fight bitterly the man who has 
made them, as though the dragging of such horrors to 
light, not the doing of them, were the unpardonable 
sin. They were only paupers ! And I read in the jour- 
nal founded by Horace Greeley, that "the woes of the 
Tewksbury paupers are no worse than the common lot 
of all inmates of pauper refuges the country over." 

Or take the revelations made this winter before a 
legislative committee of the barbarities practised in 
New York State prisons. The system remains unal- 
tered : not an official has been even dismissed. The 



IS IT THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS? 77 

belief that dominates our society is evidently that which 
I find expressed in ''a journal of civilization " by a rev- 
erend professor at Yale, that " the criminal has no claims 
ap-ainst society at all. What shall be done with him is 
a question of expediency ! " I wonder if our mission- 
aries to the heathen ever read the American papers ? 
I am certain they don't read them to the heathen. 

Behind all this is social disease. Criminals, paupers, 
prostitutes, women who abandon their children, men 
who kill themselves in despair of making a living, the 
existence of great armies of beggars and thieves, prove 
that there are large classes who find it difficult with the 
hardest toil to make an honest and sufficient livelihood. 
So it is. " There is," incidentally said to me, recently, a 
New York Supreme Judge, " a large class — I was about 
to say a majority — of the population of New York and 
Brooklyn, who just live, and to whom the rearing of 
two more children means inevitably a boy for the 
penitentiary and a girl for the brothel." A partial re- 
port of charitable work in New York City, not embrac- 
ing the operations of a number of important societies, 
shows 36,000 families obtaining relief, while it is esti- 
mated that were the houses in New York City contain- 
ing criminals and the recipients of charity set side by 
side they would make a street twenty-two miles long. 
One charitable society in New York City extended aid 
this winter to the families of three hundred tailors. 
Their wages are so small when they do work that wlien 
work gives out they must beg, steal or starve. 

Nor is this state of things confined to the metropolis. 
In Massachusetts the statistician of the Labor Bureau 
declares that among wage laborers the earnings (ex- 
clusive of the earnings of minors) are less than the 
cost of living ; that in the majority of cases working- 



78 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

men do not support their families on their individual 
earnings alone, and that fathers are forced to depend 
upon their child-^en for from one-quarter to one-third 
of the family earnings, children under fifteen supply- 
ing from one-eighth to one-sixth of the total earnings. 
Miss Emma E. Brown has shown how parents are 
forced to evade the law prohibiting the employment of 
young children, and in Pennsylvania, where a similar 
law has been passed, I read how, forced by the same 
necessity, the operatives of a mill have resolved to 
boycott a storekeeper whose relative had informed 
that children under thirteen were employed. While 
in Canada last winter it was shown that children under 
thirteen Avere kept at work in the mills from six in the 
evening to six in the morning, a man on duty with a 
strap to keep them awake. 

Illinois is one of the richest States of the Union. It 
is scarcely yet fairly settled, for the last census show 
the male population in excess to the female, and wages 
are considerably higher than in more eastern States. 
In their last report the Illinois Commissioners of La- 
bor Statistics say that their tables of wages and cost of 
living are representative only of intelligent working- 
men wdio make the most of their advantages, and do 
not reach "the confines of that w^orld of helpless ignor- 
ance and destitution in wliich multitudes in all large 
cities continually live, and whose only statistics are 
those of epidemics, pauperism and crime." Neverthe- 
less, they go on to say, an examination of these tables 
will demonstrate that one-half of these intelligent work- 
ingmen of Illinois " are not even able to earn enough for 
their daily bread, and have to depend upon the labor of 
Women and children to eke out their miserable exist- 
ence." 



THAT V/E ALL MLGLLT BE RLCLI. 79 

It is the fool who saith in his heart there is no God. 
But what shall we call the man who tells us that with 
this sort of a world God bids us be content ? 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THAT WE ALL MIGHT BE RICH. 

The terms rich and poor are of course frequently 
used in a relative sense. Among Irish peasants, kept 
on the verge of starvation by the tribute wrung from 
them to maintain the luxury of absentee landlords in 
London and Paris, " the woman of three cows " will 
be looked on as rich, while in the society of millionaires 
a man with only $500,000 will be regarded as poor. 
Now, we cannot, of course, all be rich in the sense of 
having more than others ; but when people say, as 
they so often do, that V\^e cannot all be rich, or when 
they say that we must always have the poor with us, 
they do not use the words in this comparative sense. 
They mean by the rich those who have enough, or 
more than enough, wealth to gratify all reasonable 
wants, and by the poor those who have not. 

Now, using the words in this sense, I join issue with 
those who say that we cannot all be rich ; with those 
who declare that in human society the poor must al- 
ways exist. I do not, of course, mean that we all 
might have an array of servants ; that we all might 
outshine each other in dress, in equipage, in the lavish- 
ness of our balls or dinners, in the magnificence of our 
houses. That would be a contradiction in terms. What 
I mean is, that we all might have leisure, comfort and 



83 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

abundance, not merely of the necessaries, but even of 
what are now esteemed the elegancies and luxuries of 
life. I do not mean to say that absolute equality could 
be had, or would be desirable. I do not mean to say 
that we could all have, or would want, the same quan- 
tity of all the different forms of wealth. But I do mean 
to say that we might all have enough wealth to satisfy 
reasonable desires : that we might all have so much of 
the material things we now struggle for, that no one 
would want to rob or swindle his neighbor ; that no 
one would worry all day, or lie awake at nights, fear- 
ing he might be brought to poverty, or thinking how 
he might acquire wealth. 

Does this seem a Utopian dream ? What would peo- 
ple of fifty years ago have thought of one who would 
have told them that it was possible to sew by steam- 
power ; to cross th« Atlantic in six days, or the con- 
tinent in three ; to have a message sent from London 
at noon delivered in Boston three hours before noon ; 
to hear in New York the voice of a man talking in 
Chicago ? 

Did you ever see a pail of swill given to a pen of 
hungry hogs ? That is human society as it is. 

Did you ever see a company of well-bred men and 
women sitting down to a good dinner, without scram- 
bling, or jostling, or gluttony, each, knowing that his 
own appetite will be satisfied, deferring to and helping 
the others ? That is human society as it might be. 

" Devil catch the hindmost " is the motto of our so- 
called civilized society to-day. We learn earl}^ to '' take 
care of No. i," lest No. i should suffer ; to grasp from 
others that we may not want ourselves. The fear of 
poverty makes us admire great wealth ; and so habits 
of greed are formed, and we behold the pitiable spec- 



THAT WE ALL ML GUT BE LiLCIL. 8i 

tacle of men who have already more than they can by 
any possibility use, toiling, striving, grasping to add to 
their store up to the very verge of the grave — that 
grave which, whatever else it may mean, does certainly 
mean the parting with all earthly possessions however 
great they be. 

In vain, in gorgeous churches, on the appointed Sun- 
day, is the parable of Dives and Lazarus read. What 
can it mean in churches where Dives would be wel- 
comed and Lazarus shown the door ? In vain may the 
preacher preach of the vanity of riches, while poverty 
engulphs the hindermost. But the mad struggle would 
cease when the fear of poverty had vanished. Then, 
and not till then, will a truly Christian civilization be- 
come possible. 

And may not this be ? 

We are so accustomed to poverty that even in the 
most advanced countries we regard it as the natural lot 
of the great masses of the people ; that we take it as a 
matter of course that even in our highest civilization 
large classes should want the necessaries of healthful 
life, and the vast majority should only get a poor and 
pinched living by the hardest toil. There are profes- 
sors of political economy who teach that this condition 
of things is the result of social laws of which it is idle 
to complain. There are ministers of religion who preach 
that this is the condition which an all-wise, all-power- 
ful Creator intended for his children ! If an architect 
were to build a theatre so that not more than one-tenth 
of the audience could see and hear, we should call him 
a bungler and a botch. If a man were to give a feast 
and provide so little food that nine-tenths of his guests 
must go away hungry, we would call him a fool, or 
worse. Yet so accustomed are we to poverty, that even 



82 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

the preachers of what passes for Christianity tell us that 
the great Architect of the Universe, to whose infinite 
skill all nature testifies, has made such a botched job 
of this world that the vast majority of the human creat- 
ures whom he has called into it are condemned by the 
conditions he has imposed to want, suffering, and bru- 
talizing toil that gives no opportunity for the develop- 
ment of mental powers — must pass their lives in a hard 
struggle to merely live ! 

Yet who can look about him without seeing that to 
whatever cause poverty may be due, it is not due to the 
niggardliness of nature ; without seeing that it is blind- 
ness or blasphemy to assume tliat the Creator has con- 
demned the masses of men to hard toil for a bare liv- 
ing? 

If some men have not enough to live decently, do not 
others have far more than they really need ? If there 
is not wealth sufficient to go around, giving every one 
abundance, is it because we have reached the limit of 
the production of wealth ? Is our land all in use ? is 
our labor all employed ? is our capital all utilized ? On 
the contrary, in whatever direction we look we see the 
most stupendous waste of productive forces- — of pro- 
ductive forces so potent that were they permitted to free- 
ly play the production of wealth would be so enormous 
that there would be more than a sufficiency for all. 
What branch of production is there in which the limit 
of production has been reached ? What single article 
of wealth is there of which we might not produce enor- 
mously more ? 

If the mass of the population of New York are 
jammed into the fever-breeding rooms of tenement- 
houses, it is not because there are not vacant lots enough 
in and around New York to give each family space for 



THAT WE ALL MLGLLT BE RLCH. 83 

a separate home. If settlers are going into Montana and 
Dakota and Manitoba, it is not because there are not 
vast areas of untiiled land much nearer the centres of 
population. If farmers are paying one-fourth, one-third, 
or even one-half their crops for the privilege of getting 
land to cultivate, it is not because there is not, even in 
our oldest States, great quantities of land which no one 
is cultivating. 

So true is it that poverty does not come from the in- 
ability to produce more wealth, that from every side we 
hear that the power to produce is in excess of the abili- 
ty to find a market ; that the constant fear seems to be 
not that too little, but that too much, will be produced ! 
Do we not maintain a high tariff, and keep at every 
port a horde of Custom House officers, for fear the peo- 
ple of other countries will overwhelm us with their 
goods ? Is not a great part of our machinery constant- 
ly idle ? Are there not, even in what we call good 
times, an immense number of unemployed men who 
would gladly be at work producing wealth if they could 
only get the opportunity ? Do we not, even now, hear, 
from every side, of embarrassment from the very excess 
of productive power, and of combinations to reduce pro- 
duction ? Coal operators band together to limit their 
output ; ironworks have shut down, or are running on 
half-time ; distillers have agreed to limit their produc- 
tion to one-half their capacity, and sugar refiners to six- 
ty per cent. ; paper-mills are suspending for one, two or 
three days a week ; the gunny cloth manufacturers, at 
a recent meeting, agreed to close their mills until the 
present over-stock on the market is greatly reduced ; 
many other manufacturers have done the same thing. 
The shoemaking machinery of New England can, in 
six months' full running, it is said, supply the whole 



84 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

demand of the United States for twelve months ; the 
machinery for making rubber goods can turn out twice 
as much as the market will take. 

This seeming glut of production, this seeming excess 
of productive power, runs through all branches of 
industry, and is evident all over the civilized world. 
From blackberries, bananas or apples, to ocean steam- 
ships or plate-glass mirrors, there is scarcely an article 
of human comfort or convenience that could not be 
produced in very much greater quantities than now 
without lessening the production of anything else. 

So evident is this that many people think and talk 
and write as though the trouble is that there is not 
tvork enough to go around. We are in constant fear 
that other nations may do for us some of the work we 
might do for ourselves, and, to prevent them, guard 
ourselves with a tariff. We laud as public benefactors 
those who, as w^e say, '* furnish employment." We are 
constantly talking as though this "furnishing of em- 
ployment," this "giving of work " were the greatest 
boon that could be conferred upon society. To listen 
to much that is talked and much that is written, one 
would think that the cause of poverty is that there is 
not w^ork enough for so many people, and that if the 
Creator had made the rock harder, the soil less fertile, 
iron as scarce as gold, and gold as diamonds ; or if 
ships would sink and cities burn down oftener, there 
would be less poverty, because there would be more 
work to do. 

The Lord Mayor of London tells a deputation of 
unemployed workingmen that there is no demand for 
their labor, and that the only resource for them is to 
go to the poorhouse or emigrate. The English Gov- 
ernment is shipping from Ireland able-bodied men and 



THAT WE ALL MLGHT BE RLCH. 85 

women to avoid maintaining them as paupers. Even 
in our own land there are at all times large nnmbers, 
and in hard times vast numbers, earnestly seeking 
work — the opportunity to give labor for the things 
produced by labor. 

Perhaps nothing shows more clearly the enormous 
forces of production constantly going to waste than 
the fact that the most prosperous times in all branches 
of business that this country has known was during 
the civil war, when we were maintaining great fleets 
and armies, and millions of our industrial population 
were engaged in supplying them with wealth for un- 
productive consumption or for reckless destruction. 
It is idle to talk about the fictitious prosperity of these 
flush times. The masses of the people lived better, 
dressed better, found it easier to get a living, and had 
more of luxuries and amusements than in normal 
times. There was more real, tangible wealth in the 
North at the close than at the beginning of the war. 
Nor was it the great issue of paper money, nor the 
creation of the debt which caused this prosperity. 
The Government presses struck off promises to pay ; 
they could not print ships, cannon, arms, tools, food 
and clothing. Nor did we borrow these things from 
other countries or '' from posterity." Our bonds did 
not begin to go to Europe until the close of the war, 
and the people of one generation can no more borrow 
from the people of a subsequent generation than we 
who live on this planet can borrow from the inhab- 
itants of another planet or another solar system. The 
wealth consumed and destroyed by our fleets and 
armies came from the then existing stock of wealth. 
We could have carried on the war without the issue of 
a single bond, if, when we did not shrink from taking 



88 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

from wife and children their only bread-winner, we 
had not shrunk from taking the wealth of the rich. 

Our armies and fleets were maintained, the enor- 
mous unproductive and destructive use of wealth was 
kept up, by the labor and capital then and there en- 
gaged in production. And it was that the demand 
caused by the war stimulated productive forces into 
activity that the enormous drain of the war was not only 
supplied, but that the North grew richer. The waste 
of labor in marching and counter-marching, in digging 
trenches, throwing up earthworks, and fighting battles, 
the waste of wealth consumed or destroyed by our 
armies and fleets did not amount to as much as the 
waste constantly going on from unemployed labor and 
idle or partially used machinery. 

It is evident that this enormous waste of productive 
power is due, not to defects in the laws of nature, but 
to social maladjustments which deny to labor access 
to the natural opportunities of labor and rob the 
laborer of his just reward. Evidently the glut of 
markets does not really come from over-production 
when there are so many who want the things which 
are said to be over-produced, and would gladly ex- 
change their labor for them did they have opportunity. 
Every day passed in enforced idleness by a laborer 
who would gladly be at v/ork could he find oppor- 
tunity, means so much less in the fund which creates 
the effective demand for other labor ; every time wages 
are screwed down means so much reduction in the pur- 
chasing power of the workmen whose incomes are thus 
reduced. The paralysis which at all times wastes pro- 
ductive power, and which in times of industrial de- 
pression causes more loss than a great war, springs 
from the difficulty which those who would gladly sat- 



THAT WE ALL MIGHT BE RICH. 87 

isfy their wants by their labor find in doing so. It 
cannot come from any natural limitation, so long as 
human desires remain unsatisfied, and nature yet of- 
fers to man the raw material of w^ealth. It must come 
from social maladjustments which permit the monopo- 
lization of these natural opportunities, and which rob 
labor of its fair reward. 

What these maladjustments are I shall in subsequent 
chapters endeavor to show. In this I wish simply to 
call attention to the fact that productive power in such 
a state of civilization as ours is sufficient, did we give 
it play, to so enormously increase the production of 
wealth as to give abundance to all — to point out that 
the cause of poverty is not in natural limitations, 
which we cannot alter, but in inequalities and injustices 
of distribution entirely within our control. 

The passenger who leaves New York on a trans- 
Atlantic steamer does not fear that the provisions will 
give out. The men who run these steamers do not 
send them to sea without provisions enough for all 
they carry. Did he who made this whirling planet for 
.our sojourn lack the forethought of man ? Not so. In 
soil and sunshine, in vegetable and animal life, in veins 
of minerals, and in pulsing forces which we are only 
beginning to use, are capabilities which we cannot ex- 
haust — materials and powers from which human effort, 
guided by intelligence, may gratify every material want 
of every human creature. There is in nature no rea- 
son for poverty — not even for the poverty of the crip- 
pled or the decrepit. For man is by nature a social 
animal, and the family affections and the social sympa- 
thies would, where chronic poverty did not distort and 
embrute, amply provide for those who could not pro- 
vide for themselves. 



8S SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

But if we will not use the intelligence with which we 
have been gifted to adapt social organization to natural 
laws — if we allow dogs-in-the-manger to monopolize 
what they cannot use ; if we allow strength and cun- 
ning to rob honest labor, we must have chronic pover- 
ty, and all the social evils it inevitably brings. Under 
such conditions there would be poverty in paradise. 

"The poor ye have always with you." If ever a 
scripture has been wrested to the devil's service, this 
is that scripture. How often have these words been 
distorted from their obvious meaning to soothe con- 
science into acquiescence in human misery and degra- 
dation — to bolster that blasphemy, the very negation 
and denial of Christ's teachings, that the All- Wise and 
Most Merciful, the Infinite Father, has decreed that so 
many of his creatures must be poor in order that others 
of his creatures to whom he wills the good things of 
life should enjoy the pleasure and virtue of doling out 
alms! ''The poor ye have always with you," said 
Christ ; but all his teachings supply the limitatioti, 
" until the coming of the Kingdom." In that king- 
dom of God on eaf'i/i, that kingdom of justice and love 
for which he taught his followers to strive and pray, 
there will be no poor. But though the faith and the 
hope and the striving for this kingdom are of the very 
essence of Christ's teaching, the staunchest disbelievers 
and revilers of its possibility are found among those 
who call themselves Christians. Queer ideas of the 
Divinity have some of these Christians who hold them- 
selves orthodox and contribute to the conversion of 
the heathen. A very rich orthodox Christian said to a 
newspaper reporter, awhile ago, on the completion of 
a large work out of which he is said to have made mil- 
lions : " We have been peculiarly favored by Divine 



THAT WE ALL MI GILT BE RICH. 89 

Providence ; iron never was so cheap before, and labor 
has been a drug in the market." 

That in spite of all our great advances we have yet 
with us the poor, those who, without fault of their own, 
cannot get healthful and wholesome conditions of life, 
is 0U7' fault and our shame. Who that looks about him 
can fail to see that it is only the injustice that denies 
natural opportunities to labor, and robs the producer 
of the fruits of his toil, that prevents us all from being 
rich. Consider the enormous powers of production 
now going to waste ; consider the great number of un- 
productive consumers maintained at the expense of 
producers — the rich men and dudes, the worse than 
useless Government officials, the pickpockets, burglars 
and confidence men ; the highly respectable thieves 
who carry on their operations inside the law ; the great 
army of lawyers ; the beggars and paupers, and in- 
mates of prisons ; the monopolists and cornerers and 
gamblers of every kind and grade. Consider how 
much brains and energy and capital are devoted, not 
to the production of wealth, but to the grabbing of 
wealth. Consider the waste caused by competition 
which does not increase wealth ; by laws which restrict 
production and exchange. Consider how human power 
is lessened by insufficient food, by unwholesome lodg- 
ings, by work done under conditions that produce dis- 
ease and shorten life. Consider how intemperance 
and unthrift follow poverty. Consider how the ignor- 
ance bred of poverty lessens production, and how the 
vice bred of poverty causes destruction, and who can 
doubt that under conditions of social justice all might 
be rich ? 

The wealth-producing powers that would be evoked 
in a social state based on justice, where wealth went to 



90 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

the producers of wealth, and the banishment of poverty 
Iiad banished the fear and greed and lusts that spring 
from it, we now can only faintly imagine. Wonderful 
as have been the discoveries and inventions of this cen- 
tury, it is evident that we have only begun to grasp 
tliat dominion which it is given to mind to obtain over 
matter. Discovery and invention are born of leisure, 
of material comfort, of freedom. These secured to all, 
and who shall say to what command over nature man 
may not attain ? 

It is not necessary that any one should be condemned 
to monotonous toil ; it is not necessary that any one 
should lack the wealth and the leisure which permit 
the development of the faculties that raise man above 
the animal. Mind, not muscle, is the motor of prog- 
ress, the force which compels nature and produces 
wealth. In turning men into machines we are wasting 
the highest powers. Already in our society there is a 
favored class who need take no thought for the morrow 
— what they shall eat, or what they shall drink, or 
wherewithal they shall be clothed. And may it not be 
that Christ was more than a dreamer when he told his 
disciples that in that kingdom of justice for which he 
taught them to work and pray this might be the con- 
dition of all ? 



CHAPTER IX. 

FIRST PRINCIPLES. 



Whoever considers the political and social problems 
that confront us, must see that they centre in the prob- 
lem of the distribution of wealth, and he must also see 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 91 

that, though their solution may be simple, it must be 
radical. 

For every social wrong there must be a remedy. 
But the remedy can be nothing less than the abolition 
of the wrong. Half-way measures, mere ameliorations 
and secondary reforms, can at any time accomplish 
little, and can in the long run avail nothing. Our 
charities, our penal laws, our restrictions and prohibi- 
tions, by which, with so little avail, we endeavor to as- 
suage poverty and check crime — what are they, at the 
very best, but the device of the clown who, having put 
the whole burden of his ass into one pannier, sought 
to enable the poor animal to walk straight by loading 
up the other pannier with stones? 

In New York, as I write, the newspapers and the 
churches are calling for subscriptions to their "fresh- 
air funds," that little children may be taken for a day 
or for a week from the deadly heat of stifling tenement- 
rooms and given a breath of the fresh breeze of sea- 
shore or mountain ; but what little does it avail, when 
we take such children only to return them to their 
previous conditions — conditions which to many mean 
even worse than death of the body ; conditions which 
make it certain that of the lives that may thus be saved, 
some are saved for the brothel and the almshouse, and 
some for the penitentiary. We may go on forever 
merely raising fresh-air funds, and how great soever 
be the funds we raise, the need will only grow, and 
children — just such children as those of whom Christ 
said, " Take heed that ye despise not one of these little 
ones, for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels 
do always behold the face of my Father " — will die like 
flies, so long as poverty compels fathers and mothers 
to the life of the squalid tenement-room. We may 



92 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

open "midnight missions" and support "Christian 
homes for destitute young girls," but what will they 
avail in the face of general conditions which render so 
many men unable to support a wife ; which make 
3'oung girls think it a privilege to be permitted to earn 
three dollars by eighty-one hours' work, and which 
can drive a mother to such despair that she will throw 
her babies from a wharf of our Christian city and then 
leap into the river herself! How vainly shall we en- 
deavor to repress crime by our barbarous punishment 
of the poorer class of criminals so long as children are 
reared in the brutalizing influences of poverty, so long 
as the bite of want drives men to crime! How little 
better than idle is it for us to prohibit infant labor in 
factories when the scale of wages is so low that it will 
not enable fathers to support their families without the 
earnings of their little children ! How shall we try to 
prevent political corruption by framing new checks 
and setting one official to watch another official, when 
the fear of want stimulates the lust for wealth, and the 
rich thief is honored while honest poverty is despised ? 

Nor yet could we accomplish any permanent equal- 
ization in the distribution of wealth were we to forci- 
bly take from those who have and give to those who 
have not. We would do great injustice ; we would 
work great harm ; but, from the very moment of such 
a forced equalization, the tendencies which show them- 
selves in the present unjust inequalities would begin to 
assert themselves again, and we would in a little while 
have as gross inequalities as before. 

What we must do if we would cure social disease 
and avert social danger is to remove the causes which 
prevent the just distribution of wealth. 

This work is only one of removal. It is not neces- 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. ' 93 

sary for us to frame elaborate and skilful plans for se- 
curing the just distribution of wealth. For the just 
distribution of wealth is manifestly the natural distri- 
bution of wealth, and injustice in the distribution of 
wealth must, therefore, result from artificial obstruc- 
tions to this natural distribution. 

As to what is the just distribution of wealth there 
can be no dispute. It is that which gives wealth to 
him who makes it, and secures wealth to him who 
saves it. So clearly is this the only just distribution of 
wealth that even those shallow writers who attempt to 
defend the existing order of things are driven, by a 
logical necessity, to falsely assume that those who now 
possess the larger share of wealth made it and saved 
it, or got it by gift or by inheritance from those who 
did make it and save it ; whereas the fact is, as I have 
in a previous paper shown, that all these great for- 
tunes, whose corollaries are paupers and tramps, 
really come from the sheer appropriation of the mak- 
ings and savings of other people. 

And that this just distribution of wealth is the 
natural distribution of wealth can be plainly seen. 
Nature gives wealth to labor, and to nothing but 
labor. There is, and there can be, no article of wealth 
but such as labor has got by making it, or searching 
for it, out of the raw material which the Creator has 
given us to draw from. If there were but one man in 
the world it is manifest that he could have no more 
wealth than he was able to make and to save. This is 
the natural order. And, no matter how great be the 
population, or how elaborate the society, no one can 
have more wealth than he produces and saves, unless 
he gets it as a free gift from some one else, or by ap- 
propriating the earnings of some one else. 



94 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

An English writer has divided all men into three 
classes — workers, beggars and thieves. The classifi- 
cation is not complimentary to the "upper classes" 
and the ''better classes," as they are accustomed to 
esteem themselves, yet it is economically true. There 
are only three ways by which any individual can get 
wealth — by work, by gift or by theft. And, clearly, 
the reason why the workers get so little is that the 
beggars and thieves get so much. When a man gets 
wealth that he does not produce, he necessarily gets it 
at the expense of those who produce it. 

All we need do to secure a just distribution of 
wealth, is to do that which all theories agree to be the 
primary function of government — to secure to each 
the free use of his own powers, limited only by the 
equal freedom of all others ; to secure to each the full 
enjoyment of his own earnings, limited only by such 
contributions as he may be fairly called upon to make 
for purposes of common benefit. 

I wish to emphasize this point, for there are those 
who constantly talk and write as though whoever finds 
fault with the present distribution of wealth were de- 
manding that the rich should be spoiled for the bene- 
fit of the poor ; that the idle should be taken care of at 
the expense of the industrious, and that a false and 
impossible equality should be created, which, by re- 
ducing every one to the same dead level, would de- 
stroy all incentive to excel and bring progress to a 
halt. 

In the reaction from the glaring injustice of present 
social conditions, su.ch wild schemes have been pro- 
posed, and still find advocates. But to my way of 
thinking they are as impracticable and repugnant as 
they can seem to those who are loudest in their denun- 



fIRST PRINCIPLES. 95 

ciations of '^ communism." I am not willing to say 
that in the progress of humanity a state of society may 
not be possible which shall realize the formula of 
Louis Blanc, " From each according to his abilities ; 
to each according to his wants," for there exist to- 
day in the religious Orders of the Catholic Church, 
associations which maintain the communism of early 
Christianity. But it seems to me that the only power 
by which such a state of society can be attained and 
preserved is that which the framers of the schemes I 
speak of generally ignore, even when they do not di- 
rectly antagonize — a deep, definite, intense, religious 
faith, so clear, so burning as to utterly melt away the 
thought of self — a general moral condition such as 
that which the Methodists declare, under the name of 
"sanctification," to be individually possible, in which 
the dream of pristine innocence should become reality, 
and man, so to speak, should again walk with God. 

But the possibility of such a state of society seems 
to me in the present stage of human development a 
speculation which comes within the higher domain of 
religious faith rather than that with which the econo- 
mist or practical statesman can concern himself. That 
nature, as it is apparent to us here, in this infinitesi- 
mal point in space and time that we call the world, is 
the highest expression of the power and purpose that 
called the universe into being, what thoughtful man 
dare affirm ? Yet it is manifest that the only way by 
which man may attain higher things is by conforming 
his conduct to those commandments which are as ob- 
vious in his relations with his fellows and with exter- 
nal nature as though they were graved by the finger of 
Omnipotence upon tablets of imperishable stone. In 
the order of moral development, Moses comes before 



96 SOCIAL rROBLEMS. 

Christ — "Thou shalt not kill " ; '' Thou shalt not com- 
mit adultery"; "Thou shalt not steal"; before 
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The com- 
mand " Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth uut 
the corn," precedes the entrancing vision of universal 
peace, in which even Nature's rapine shall cease, when 
the lion shall lay down -svith the lamb and a little child 
shall load them. 

That justice is the highest quality in the moral hi- 
erarchy I do not say ; but that it is the first. That 
which is above justice must be based on justice, and 
include justice, and be reached through justice. It is 
not by accident that, in the Hebraic religious develop- 
ment which through Christianity we have inherited, 
the declaration, "The Lord thy God is a just God," 
precedes the sweeter revelation of a God of Love. 
Until the eternal justice is perceived, the eternal love 
must be hidden. As the individual must be just before 
he can be truly generous, so must human society be 
based upon justice before it can be based on benevo- 
lence. 

This, and this alone, is what I contend for — that our 
social institutions be conformed to justice ; to those 
natural and eternal principles of right that are so ob- 
vious that no one can deny or dispute them — so obvi- 
ous that by a law of the human mind even those who 
try to defend social injustice nuist invoke them. This, 
and this alone, I contend for — that he who makes 
should have ; that he who saves should enjoy. I ask 
in behalf of the poor nothing whatever that properly 
belongs to the rich. Instead of weakening and confus- 
ing the idea of property, I would surround it with 
stronger sanctions. Instead of lessening the incentive 
to the production of wealth, I would make it more 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 97 

powerful by making the reward more certain. What- 
ever any man has added to the common stock of wealth, 
or has received of the free will of him who did produce 
it, let that be his as against all the world — his to use 
or to give, to do with it whatever he may please, so 
long as such use does not interfere with the equal free- 
dom of others. For my part, I would put no limit on 
acquisition. No matter how many millions any man 
can get by methods which do not involve the robbery 
of others — they are his : let him have them. I would 
not even ask him for charity, or have it dinned into his 
ears that it is his duty to help the poor. That is his 
own affair. Let him do as he pleases with his own, 
without restriction and without suggestion. If he gets 
without taking from others, and uses without hurting 
others, what he does with his wealth is his own busi- 
ness and his own responsibility. 

I reverence the spirit that, in such cities as London 
and New York, organizes such great charities and gives 
to them such magnificent endowments, but that there 
is need for such cliarities proves to me that it is a slan- 
der upon Christ to call such cities Christian cities. I 
honor the Astors for having provided for New York 
the Astor Library, and Peter Cooper for ha.ving given 
it the Cooper Institute ; but it is a shame and a dis- 
grace to the people of New York that such things 
should be left to private beneficence. And lie w^ho 
struggles for that recognition of justice which, by se- 
curing to each his own, will make it needless to beg 
for alms from one for another, is doing a greater and 
a higher work than he who builds churches, or endows 
hospitals, or founds colleges and libraries. This jus- 
tice, which would first secure to each his own earnings, 
is it not of that higher than almsgiving, which the 
7 



98 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

Apostle had in his mind, when he said, '' Though I be- 
stow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my 
body to be bur tied, and have not charity, it profit eth me noth- 
ing r 

Let us first ask what are the natural rights of men, 
and endeavor to secure them, before we propose either 
to beg or to pillage. 

In what succeeds I shall consider what are the natu- 
ral lights of men, and how, under present social adjust- 
ments, they are ignored and denied. This is made 
necessary by the nature of this inquiry. But I do not 
wisli to call upon those my voice may reach to demand 
their own rights, so much as to call upon them to se- 
cure the rights of others more helpless, I believe that 
the idea of duty is more potent for social improvement 
than the idea of interest ; that in sympathy is a strong- 
er social force than in selfishness. I believe that any 
great social improvement must spring from, and be 
animated by, that spirit which seeks to make life bet- 
ter, nobler, happier for others, rather than by that 
spirit which only seeks more enjoyment for itself. For 
the Mammon of Injustice can always buy the selfish 
whenever it may think it worth while to pay enough ; 
but unselfishness it cannot buy. 

In the idea of the incarnation — of the God volun- 
tarily descending to the help of men, which is embodied 
not merely in Christianity, but in other great religions 
— lies, I sometimes think, a deeper truth than per- 
haps even the churches teach. This is certain, that the 
deliverers, the liberators, the advancers of humanity, 
liave always been those who were moved by the sight 
of injustice and misery rather than those spurred by 
their own suffering. As it was a Moses, learned in all 
the lore of the Egyptians, and free to the Court of 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 99 

Pharaoh, and not a tasked slave, forced to make bricks 
without straw, who led the Children of Israel from the 
House of Bondage : as it was the Gracchi, of patrician 
blood and fortune, who struggled to the death against 
the land-grabbing system which finally destroyed Rome, 
as it must, should it go on, in time destroy this repub- 
lic : so has it always been that the oppressed, the de- 
graded, the down-trodden have been freed and elevated 
rather by the efforts and the sacrifices of those to whom 
fortune had been more kind than by their own strength. 
For the more fully men have been deprived of their 
natural rights, the less their power to regain them. 
The more men need help, the less can they help them- 
selves. 

The sentiment to which I would appeal is not envy, 
nor yet self-interest, but that nobler sentiment which 
found strong, though rude, expression in that battle- 
hymn which rang through the land when a great wrong 
was going down in blood : 

"In the beauty of the lilies, Christ was born across the sea, 
With a glory in His bosom to transfigure you and me, 
As He died to make men holy, let zis die to make men free / " * 

And what is there for which life gives us opportunity 
that can be compared with the effort to do what we 
may, be it ever so little, to improve social conditions 
and enable other lives to reach fuller, nobler develop- 
ment ? Old John Brown, dying the death of the felon, 
launched into eternity with pinioned arms and the kiss 
of the slave child on his lips — was not his a greater 
life and a grander death than though his years had 
been given to self-seeking ? Did he not take with him 

* "Battle-IIymn of the Republic," by Julia Ward Howe. 



TOO SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

more than the man who grabs for wealth and leaves his 
millions ? Envy the rich ! Who that realizes that he 
must some day wake up in the beyond can envy those 
who spend their strength to gather what they cannot 
use here and cannot take away ? The only thing cer- 
tain to any of us is death. " Like the swallow darting 
through thy hall, such, O King, is the life of man ! " 
We come from where we know not ; we go — who shall 
say? Impenetrable darkness behind, and gathering 
shades before. What, when our time comes, does it 
matter whether we have fared daintily or not, whether 
we have worn soft raiment or not, whether we leave a 
great fortune or nothing at all, whether we shall have 
reaped honors or been despised, have been counted 
learned or ignorant — as compared with how we may 
have used that talent which has been intrusted to us 
for the Master's service ? What shall it matter, when 
eyeballs glaze and ears grow dull, if out of the dark- 
ness may stretch a hand, and into the silence may come 
a voice : 

'' Well done, thoii- good and faithful servant : thou hast 
been faithful ovei' a few things, I 7vill make thee ruler over 
many things ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord ! " 

I shall speak of rights, 1 shall speak of utility, I shall 
speak of interest ; I shall meet on their chosen ground 
those who say that the largest production of wealth is 
the greatest good, and material progress the highest 
aim. Nevertheless, I appreciate the truth embodied 
in these words of Mazzini to the working-classes of 
Italy, and would echo them : 

Workingmen, brothers ! When Christ came and changed the face 
of the world, he spoke not of rights to the rich, who needed not to 
achieve them ; nor to the poor, who would doubtless have abused them, 
in imitation of the rich ; he spoke not of utility, nor of interest, to a 



THE RIGHTS OF MAN. loi 

people whom interest and utility had corrupted ; he spoke of duty, he 
spoke of love, of sacrifice and of faith ; and he said that they should 
be first among all who had contributed most by their labor to the good 
of all. 

And the word of Christ breathed in the ear of a society in wliich 
all true life was extinct, recalled it to existence, conquered the millions, 
conquered the world, and caused the education of the human race to 
ascend one degree on the scale of progress. 

Workingmen ! We live in an epoch similar to that of Christ. 
We live in the midst of a society as corrupt as that of the Roman Em- 
pire, feeling in our inmost souls the need of reanimating and trans- 
forming it, and of uniting all its various members in one sole faith, 
beneath one sole law, in one sole aim — the free and progressive devel- 
opment of all the faculties of which God has given the germ to his 
creatures. We seek the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven, 
or, rather, that earth may become a preparation for heaven, and society 
an endeavor after the progressive realization of the divine idea. 

But Christ's every act was the visible representation of the faith 
he preached ; and around him stood apostles who incarnated in their 
actions the faith they had accepted. Be you such and you will con- 
quer. Preach duty to the classes about you, and fulfil, as far as in 
you lies, your own. Preach virtue, sacrifice and love ; and be your- 
selves virtuous, loving and ready for self-sacrifice. Speak your thoughts 
boldly, and make known your wants courageously ; but without anger, 
without reaction, and without threats. The strongest menace, if indeed 
there be those for whom threats are necessary, will be the firmness, 
not the irritation, of your speech. 



CHAPTER- X. 

THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 



There are those who, when it suits their purpose, say 
that there are no natural rights, but that all rights 
spring from the grant of the sovereign political power. 
It were waste of time to argue with such persons. 
There are some facts so obvious as to be beyond the 



I02 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

necessity of argument. And one of these facts, attested 
by universal consciousness, is that there are rights as 
between man and man which existed before the for- 
mation of government, and which continue to exist in 
spite of the abuse of government ; that there is a higher 
law than any human law— to wit, the law of the Cre- 
ator, impressed upon and revealed through nature, 
which is before and above human laws, and upon con- 
formity to wdiich all human laws must depend for their 
validity. To deny this is to assert that there is no 
standard whatever by which the rightfulness or Avrong- 
fulness of laws and institutions can be measured ; to 
assert that there can be no actions in themselves right 
and none in themselves Vv^rong ; to assert that an edict 
which commanded mothers to kill their children should 
receive the same respect as a law prohibiting infanti- 
cide. 

These natural rights, this higher law, form the only 
true and sure basis for social organization. Just as, if 
we would construct a successful machine, we must con- 
form to physical laws, such as the law of gravitation, 
the law of combustion, the law of expansion, etc. ; just 
as, if we woidd maintain bodily health, we must con- 
form to the laws of physiology ; so, if we would have a 
peaceful and healthful social state we must conform 
our institutions to the great moral laws — laws to which 
we are absolutely subject, and which are as much above 
our control as are the laws of matter and of motior,. 
And as, when we find that a machine will not work, we 
infer that in its construction some law of physics has 
been ignored or defied, so when we find social disease 
and political evils may we infer that in the organization 
of society moral law has been defied and the natural 
rights of man have been ignored. 



THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 103 

These natural rights of man are thus set forth in the 
American Declaration of Independence as the basis 
upon which alone legitimate government can rest : 

We hold these truths to be self-evident — that all men are created 
equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable 
rights ; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ; 
that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, de- 
riving their just powers from the consent of the governed ; that, when- 
ever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is 
the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new 
government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing 
its powers in such form, as shall seem to them most likely to affect their 
safety and happiness. 

So does the preamble to the Constitution of the 
United States appeal to the same principles : 

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more per- 
fect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the 
common defence, promote the general welfare, and seciire the blessings 
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this 
Constitution for the United States of America. 

And so, too, is the same fundamental and self-evident 
truth set forth in that grand Declaration of the Rights 
of Man and of Citizens, issued by the National Assem- 
bly of France in 1789 : 

The representatives of the people of France, formed into a Na- 
tional Assembly, considering that ignoraiice, neglect, or contempt of 
human rights are the sole causes of pttblic misfortunes and corruptions 
of governtnent, have resolved to set forth, in a solemn declaration, those 
natural, imprescriptible and inalienable rights, and do recognize and 
declare, in the presence of the Supreme Being, and with the hope of 
His blessing and favor, the following sacred rights of men and of citi- 
zens : 

I. Men are born and always continue free and equal in respect of 
their rights. Civil distinctions, therefore, can only be founded on pub- 
^lic utility. 



I04 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

11. The end of all political associations is the preservation of the 
natural and imprescriptible rights of man, and these rights are liberty, 
property, security, and resistance of oppression. 

It is one thing to assert the eternal principles, as 
tliey are asserted in times of upheaval, wlien men of 
convictions and of the courage of tlieir convictions 
come to the front, and another tiling for a people just 
emerging from the niglit of ignorance and superstition, 
and enslaved by habits of tliouglit formed by injustice 
and oppression, to adhere to and carry tliem out. Tlie 
French people have not been true to these principles, 
nor yet, witli far greater advantages, have we. - And so, 
though tlie ancient regime^ witli its blasphemy of " right 
divine," its Bastiie and its letters de cachet^ has been abol- 
islred in France ; tliere have come red terror and white 
terror. Anarchy masquerading as Freedom, and Im- 
perialism deriving its sanction from universal suffrage, 
culminating in such a poor thing as the French Repub- 
lic of to-day. And here, with our virgin soil, with our 
exemption from foreign complications, and our free- 
dom from pow^erful and hostile neighbors, all we can 
show is another poor thing of a Republic, with its rings 
and its bosses, its railroad kings controlling sovereign 
states, its gangrene of corruption eating steadily toward 
the political heart, its tramps and its strikes, its osten- 
tation of ill-gotton wealth, its children toiling in fac- 
tories, and its women working out their lives for bread ! 

It is possible for men to see the truth, and assert the 
truth, and to hear and repeat, again and again, formu- 
las embodying the truth, without realizing all that 
that truth involves. Men who signed the Declaration 
of Independence, or applauded the Declaration of In- 
dependence; men who year after year read it, and heard 
it, and honored it, did so without thinking that the^, 



THE RIGHTS OF MA AT. 105 

eternal principles of right which it invoked condemned 
the existence of negro slavery as well as the tyranny 
of George III. And many who, awakening to the 
fuller truth, asserted the unalienable rights of man 
against chattel slavery, did not see that these rights 
involved far more than the denial of property in hu- 
man flesh and blood ; and as vainly imagined that they 
had fully asserted them when chattel slaves had been 
emancipated and given the suffrage, as their fathers 
vainly imagined they had fully asserted them, when 
they threw off allegiance to the English king and es- 
tablished here a democratic republic. 

The common belief of Americans of to-day is that 
among us the equal and unalienable rights of man are 
now all acknowledged, while as for poverty, crime, 
low wages, ''over-production," political corruption, 
and so on, they are to be referred to the nature of 
things — that is to say, if any one presses for a more 
definite answer, they exist because it is the will of God, 
the Creator, that they should exist. Yet T believe 
that these evils are demonstrably due to our failure 
to fully acknowledge the equal and unalienable rights 
with which, as asserted as a self-evident truth by the 
Declaration of Independence, all men have been en- 
dowed by God, their Creator. I believe the National 
Assembly of France were right when, a century ago 
inspired by the same spirit that gave us political free- 
dom, they declared that the great cause of public mis- 
fortunes and corruptions of government is ignorance, 
neglect, or contempt of human rights. And just as the 
famine which was tlien decimating France, the bank- 
ruptcy and corruption of her Government, the brut- 
ish degradation of her working classes, and the de- 
,moralization of her aristocracy, were directly trace- 



io6 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

able to the denial of the equal, natural and impre- 
scriptible rights of men, so now the social and political 
problems which menace the American republic, in 
common with the whole civilized world, spring from 
the same cause. 

Let us consider the matter. The equal, natural and 
unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of 
happiness, does it not involve the right of each to the 
free use of his powers in making a living for himself 
and his family, limited only by the equal right of all 
others ? Does it not require that each shall be free to 
make, to save and to enjoy what wealth he may, with- 
out interference with the equal rights of others ; that 
no one shall be compelled to give forced labor to an- 
other, or to yield up his earnings to another ; that no 
one shall be permitted to extort from another labor 
or earnings ? All this goes without the saying. Any 
recognition of the equal right to life and liberty which 
would deny the right to property — the right of a man 
to his labor and to the full fruits of his labor, would 
be mockery. 

But that is just what we do. Our so-called recog- 
nition of the equal and natural rights of man is to 
large classes of our people nothing but a mockery, and 
as social pressure increases, is becoming a more bitter 
mockery to larger classes, because our institutions fail 
to secure the rights of men to their labor and the fruits 
of their labor. 

That this denial of a primary human right is the 
cause of poverty on the one side and of overgrown 
fortunes on the other, and of all the waste and demor- 
alization and corruption that flow from the grossly un- 
equal distribution of wealth, may be easily seen. 

As I am speaking of conditions general over the 



THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 107 

whole civilized world, let us first take the case of an- 
other country, for we can sometimes see the faults of 
our neighbors more clearly than our own. England, 
the country from which we derive our language and 
institutions, is behind us in the formal recognition of 
political liberty ; but there is as much industrial liberty 
there as here — and in some respects more, for England, 
though she has not yet reached free trade, has got rid 
of the '' protective " swindle, which we still hug. And 
the English people — poor things — are, as a whole, sat- 
isfied of their freedom, and boast of it. They think, 
for it has been so long preached to them that most of 
them honestly believe it, that Englishmen are the 
freest people in the world, and they sing '' Britons 
never shall be slaves," as though it were indeed true 
that slaves could, not breathe British air. 

Let us take a man of the masses of this people — a 
''free-born Englishman," coming" of long: generations 
of " free-born Englishmen," in Wiltshire or Devonshire 
or Somersetshire, on soil which, if you could trace his 
genealogy, you would find his fathers have been tilling 
from early Saxon times. He grows to manhood, we 
will not stop to inquire how, and, as is the natural 
order, he takes himself a wife. Here he stands, a man 
among his fellows, in a world in which the Creator has 
ordained that he should get a living by his labor. He 
has wants, and as, in the natural order, children come 
to him, he will have more ; but he has in brain and 
muscle the natural power to satisfy these wants from 
the storehouse of nature. He knows how to dig and 
plow, to sow and to reap, and there is the rich soil, 
ready now, as it was thousands of years ago, to give 
back wealth to labor. The rain falls, and the sun 
shines, and as the planet circles around her orbit. 



io8 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

Spring follows Winter, and Summer succeeds Spring. 
It is this man's first and clearest right to earn his liv- 
ing, to transmute his labor into wealth, and to possess 
and enjoy that wealth for his own sustenance and 
benefit, and for the sustenance and benefit of those 
whom nature places in dependence on him. He has 
no right to demand any one else's earnings, nor has 
any one else a right to demand any portion of his earn- 
ings. He has no right to compel any one else to work 
for his benefit ; nor have others a right to demand that 
he shall work for their benefit. This right to himself, 
to the use of his own powers and the results of his own 
exertions, is a natural, self-evident right, which, as a 
matter of principle, no one can dispute, save upon the 
blasphemous contention that some men were created 
to work for other men. And this primary, natural 
right to his own labor, and to the fruits of his own 
labor, accorded, this man can abundantly provide for 
his own needs and for the needs of his family. His 
labor will, in the natural order, produce wealth, which, 
exchanged in accordance with mutual desires for wealth 
which others have produced, will supply his family with 
all the material comforts of life, and in the absence of 
serious accident, enable him to bring up his children, 
and lay by such a surplus that he and his wife may 
take their rest, and enjoy their sunset hour in the de- 
clining years when strength shall fail, without asking 
any one's alms or being beholden to any bounty save 
that of "Our Father which art in heaven." 

But what is the fact ? The fact is, that the right of 
this " free-born Englishman " to his own labor and 
the fruits of his labor is denied as fully and completely 
as though he were made by law a slave ; that he is 
compelled to work for the enrichment of others as truly 



THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 109 

as though English law hau made him the property of 
an owner. The law of the land does not declare that 
he is a slave : on the contrary, it formally declares that 
he is a free man — free to work for himself, and free to 
enjoy the fruits of his labor. But a man cannot labor 
without something to labor on, any more than he can 
eat without having something to eat. It is not in 
human powers to make something out of nothing. 
This is not contemplated in the creative scheme. Nat- 
ure tells us that if we will not work we must starve ; 
but at the same time supplies us with everything neces- 
sary to work. Food, clothing, shelter, all the articles 
that minister to desire and that we call wealth, can be 
produced by labor, but only when the raw material of 
which they must be composed is drawn from the land. 
To drop a man in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean 
and tell him he is at liberty to walk ashore, would not 
be more bitter irony than to place a man w^iere all the 
land is appropriated as the property of other people 
and to tell him that he is a free man, at liberty to work 
for himself and to enjoy his own earnings. That is 
the situation in which our Englishman finds himself. 
He is just as free as he would be were he suspended 
over a precipice while somebody else held a sharp knife 
to the rope ; just as free as if thirsting in a desert he 
found the only spring for miles walled and guarded by 
armed men who told him he could not drink unless he 
J^reely contracted with them on their terms. Had this 
Englishman lived generations ago, in the time of his 
Saxon ancestors, he would, when he became of age, 
and had taken a wife, been allotted his house-plot and 
his seed-plot ; he would have had an equal share in the 
great fields which the villages cultivated together, he 
would have been free to gather his fagots or take game 



no SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

in the common wood, or to graze his beasts on the 
common pasturage. Even a few generations ago, after 
the land-grabbing that began with the Tudors had gone 
on for some centuries, he would have found in yet ex- 
isting commons some faint survival of the ancient prin- 
ciple that this planet was intended for all men, not for 
some men.^ But now he finds every foot of land in- 
closed against him. The fields which his forefathers 
tilled, share and share alike, are the private property 
of "my lord," who rents it out to large farmers on 
terms so high that, to get ordinary interest on tlieir 
capital, they must grind the faces of their laborers ; 
the ancient woodland is inclosed by a high wall, topped 
with broken glass, and is patrolled by gamekeepers 
with loaded guns and the authority to take any intrud- 
er before the magistrate, who will send him to prison ; 
the old-time common has become "my lord's" great 
park, on which his fat cattle graze, and his supple- 
limbed deer daintily browse. Even the old footpaths 
that gave short cuts from road to road, through hazel- 
thicket and by tinkling brook, are now walled in. 

Yet this "free-born Englishman," this Briton who 
never shall be a slave, cannot live without land. Fie 

* It is probable that the ancient English common rights to land no- 
where survive in clearer form than on I^opig Island, in the immediate 
vicinity of New York, the site of some of the earliest English settle- 
ments — New York itself, it will be remembered, being originally a 
Dutch settlement which became English by conquest. The process 
of obliteration is now, however, rapidly going on. The wide and 
most eligibly situated peninsula of Montauk, the eastern extremity of 
the island, which may some day have enormous value as the point of 
arrival and departure of European steamers, has just become the pri- 
vate property of New York capitalists, who have quietly and gradu- 
ally purchased the rights to common of the descendants of the early 
settlers who still enjoyed it. 



THE RIGHTS OF MAN. iii 

must find some bit of the earth's surface on which he 
and his wife can rest, which they may call '' home." 
But, save the high-roads, there is not as much of their 
native land as they may cover with the soles of their 
feet, that they can use without some other human 
creature's permission ; and on the high-road they 
would not be suffered to lie down, still less to make 
them a bower of leaves. So, to get living space in 
his native land, our " free-born Englishman " must 
consent to work so many days in the mionth for one of 
the '^owners" of England, or, what amounts to the 
same thing, he must sell his labor, or the fruits of his 
labor, to some third party and pay the '' owner " of 
some particular part of the planet for the privilege of 
living on the planet. Having thus sacrificed a part of 
his labor to get permission from another fellow-creat- 
ure to live, if he can, our free-born Englishman must 
next go to work to procure food, clothing, etc. But 
as he cannot get to work without land to work on, he 
is compelled, instead of going to work for himself, to 
sell his labor to those who have land on such terms as 
they please, and those terms are only enough to just 
support life in the most miserable fashion — that is to 
say, all the produce of his labor is taken from him, 
and he is given back out of it just what the hardest 
owner would be forced to give the slave — enough to 
support life on. He lives in a miserable hovel, with 
its broken floor on the bare ground, and an ill-kept 
thatch, through which the rain comes. He works 
from morning to night, and his wife must do the same ; 
and their children, as soon almost as they can walk, 
must also go to work, pulling weeds, or scaring away 
crows, or doing such like jobs for the landowner, who 
graciously lets them live and work on his land. Ill- 



112 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

ness often comes, and death too often. Then there is 
no recourse but the parish or ''My Lady Bountiful," 
the wife or daughter, or almoner of '* the God Al- 
mighty of the county-side," as Tennyson calls him — 
the owner (if not the maker) of the world in these 
parts, w^ho doles out in insulting and degrading charity 
some little stint of the wealth appropriated from the 
labor of this family and of other such families. If he 
dees not ''order himself lowly and reverently to all his 
betters ; " if he does not pull his poor hat off his sheep- 
ish head whenever "my lord" or "my lady," or "his 
honor," or any of their understrappers, go by ; if he 
does not bring up his children in the humility which 
these people think proper and becoming in the "lower 
classes ; " if there is suspicion that he may have helped 
himself to an apple or snared a hare, or slyly hooked a 
fish from the stream, this "free-born Englishman" 
loses charity and loses work. He must go on the 
parish or starve. He becomes bent and stiff before his 
time. His wife is old and w^orn, w4ien she ought to be 
in her prime of strength and beauty. His girls — such 
as live — marry such as he, to lead such lives as their 
mother's, or, perhaps, are seduced by their "betters," 
and sent, with a few pounds, to a great town, to die in 
a few years in brothel, or hospital, or prison. His 
boys grow up ignorant and brutish ; they cannot sup- 
port him when he grows old, even if they would, for 
they do not get back enough of the proceeds of their 
labor. The only refuge for the pair in their old age is 
the almshouse, where, for shame to let them starve on 
the roadside, these worked-out slaves are kept to die 
— where the man is separated from the wife, and the 
old couple, over whom the parson of the church, by 
law established, has said, " Whom God hath joined 



THE RIGHTS OF MAN. 113 

together let no man put asunder," lead, apart from 
each other, a prison-like existence until death comes 
to their relief. 

In what is the condition of such a '^ free-born Eng- 
lishman " as this, better than that of a slave ? Yet if 
this is not a fair picture of the condition of the Eng- 
lish agricultural laborers, it is only because I have not 
dwelt upon the darkest shades — the sodden ignorance 
and brutality, the low morality of these degraded and 
debased classes. In quantity and quality of food, in 
clothing and housing, in ease and recreation, and in 
morality, there can be no doubt that the average 
Southern slave was better off than the average agricul- 
tural laborer is in England to-day — that his life was 
healthier and happier and fuller. So long as a plump, 
well-kept, hearty negro was worth |l 1,000, no slave- 
owner, selfish or cold-blooded as he might be, would 
keep his negroes as great classes of *' free-born Eng- 
lishmen " must live. But these white slaves have no 
money-value. It is not the labor, it is the land that 
commands the labor, that has a capitalized value. You 
can get the labor of men for from nine to twelve shil- 
lings a week — less than it would cost to keep a sla,ve 
in good marketable condition, and of children for six- 
pence a week, and when they are worked out they can 
be left to die or "go on the parish." 

The negroes, some say, are an inferior race. But 
these white slaves of England are of the stock that 
has given England her scholars and her poets, her 
pliilosophers and statesmen, her merchants and in- 
ventors, who have formed the bulwark of the sea-girt 
isle, and have carried the meteor flag around the 
world. They are ignorant, and degraded, and debased ; 
they live the life of slaves and die the death of pau- 
8 



114 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

pers, simply because they are robbed of their natural 
rights. 

In the same neighborhood in which you may find 
such people as these, in which you may see squalid 
laborers' cottages where human beings huddle together 
like swine, you may also see grand mansions set in 
great, velvety, oak-graced parks, the habitations of 
local " God Almighty," as the Laureate styles them, 
and as these brutalized English people seem almost to 
take them to be. They never do any work — they 
pride themselves upon the fact that for hundreds of 
years their ancestors have never done any work ; they 
look with the utmost contempt not merely upon the 
man who works, but even upon the man whose grand- 
father had toAvork. Yet they live in the utmost luxury. 
They have town houses and country houses, horses, 
carriages, liveried servants, yachts, packs of hounds ; 
they have all that wealth can command in the way of 
literature and education and the culture of travel. 
And they have wealth to spare, which they can invest 
in railway shares, or public debts, or in buying up land 
in the United States. But not an iota of this vv'ealth 
do they produce. They get it because, it being con- 
ceded that they own the land, the people who do pro- 
duce wealth must hand their earnings over to them. 

Here, clear and plain, is the beginning and primary 
cause of that inequality in the distribution of wealth 
which, in England, produces such dire, soul-destroy- 
ing poverty, side by side with such wantonness of lux- 
ury, and which is to be seen in the cities even more 
glaringly than in the country. Here, clear and plain, 
is the reason why labor seems a drug, and why, in all 
occupations in which mere laborers can engage, wages 
tend to the merest pittance on which life can be main- 



DUMPING GARBAGE. 115 

tained. Deprived of their ^ natural rights to land, 
treated as intruders upon God's earth, men are com- 
pelled to an unnatural competition for the privilege 
of mere animal existence, that in manufacturing towns 
and city slums reduces humanity to a depth of misery 
and debasement in which beings, created in the image 
of God, sink below the level of the brutes. 

And the same inequality of conditions which we see 
beginning here, is it not due to the same primary 
cause ? American citizenship confers no right to 
American soil. The first and most essential rights of 
man — the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of hap- 
piness — are denied here as completely as in England. 
And the same results must follow. 



CHAPTER XL 

DUMPING GARBAGE. 



This gulf-stream of humanity that is setting on our 
shores with increasing volume is in all respects worthy 
of more attention than we give it. In many ways one 
of the most important phenomena of our time, it is 
one which forcibly brings to the mind the fact that we 
are living under conditions which must soon begin to 
rapidly change. But there is one part of the immi- 
gration coming to us this year which is specially sug- 
gestive. A number of large steamers of the transat- 
lantic lines are calling, under contract with the British 
Government, at small ports on the west coast of Ire- 
land, filling up w4th men, women and children, whose 
passages are paid by their government, and then, ferry- 
ing them across the ocean, are dumping them on the 



ii6 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

wharves of New York and Boston with a few dollars 
apiece in their pockets to begin life in the New World. 

The strength of a nation is in its men. It is its peo- 
ple that makes a country great and strong, produce its 
wealth, and give it rank among other countries. Yet, 
here is a civilized and Christian government, or one 
that passes for such, shipping off its people, to be 
dumped upon another continent as garbage is shipped 
off from New York to be dumped into the Atlantic 
Ocean. Nor are these people undesirable material for 
the making of a nation. Whatever they may sometimes 
become here, when cooped up in tenement-houses and 
exposed to the corruption of our politics, and to the 
temptation of a life greatly differing from that to which 
they have been accustomed, they are in their own coun- 
try, as any one who has been among them there can 
testify, a peaceable, industrious, and, in some important 
respects, a peculiarly moral people, who lack intellec- 
tual and political education, and the robust virtues that 
personal independence alone can give, simply because 
of the poverty to which they are condemned. Mr. Tre- 
velyan, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, has declared in 
the House of Commons that they are physically and 
morally healthy, well capable of making a, living, and 
yet the government of which he is a member is ship- 
ping them away at public expense as New York ships 
its garbage ! 

These people are well capable of making a living, 
Mr. Trevelyan says, yet if they remain at home they 
will only be able to make the poorest of poor livings 
in the best of times, and when seasons are not of the 
best, taxes must be raised and alms begged to keep 
them alive ; and so as the cheapest way of getting rid 
of them, they are shipped away at public expense. 



DUMPING GARBAGE. 117 

What is the reason of this ? Why is it that people, 
in themselves well capable of making a living, cannot 
make a living for themselves in their own country ? 
Simply that the natural, equal, and unalienable rights 
of man, with which, as asserted by our Declaration of 
Independence, these human beings have been endowed 
by their Creator, are denied them. The famine, the 
pauperism, the misgovernment and turbulence of Ire- 
land, the bitter wrongs which keep aglow the fire of 
Irish "sedition," and the difeiculties vv^ith regard to Ire- 
land which perplex English statesmen, all spring from 
what the National Assembly of France, in 1789, de- 
clared to be the cause of all public misfortunes and 
corruptions of government — the contempt of human 
rights. The Irish peasant is forced to starve, to beg, 
or to emigrate ; he becomes in the eyes of those who 
rule him mere human garbage, to be shipped off and 
dumped anywhere, because, like the English peasant, 
who, after a slave's life, dies a pauper's death, his 
natural rights in his native soil are denied him ; be- 
cause his unalienable right to procure wealth by his 
own exertions and to retain it for his own uses is re- 
fused him. 

The country from which these people are shipped 
— and the government-aided emigration is as nothing 
compared to the voluntary emigration — is abundantly 
capable of maintaining in comfort a very much larger 
population than it has ever had. There is no natural 
reason why in it people themselves capable of making 
a living should suffer want and starvation. The reason 
that they do is simply that they are denied natural op- 
portunities for the employment of their labor, and that 
the laws permit others to extort from them the pro- 
ceeds of such labor as they are permitted to do. Of 



ii8 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

these people who are now being sent across the A,^lan- 
tic by the English Government, and dumped on our 
wharves with a few dollars in their pockets, there are 
probably none of mature years who have not by their 
labor produced wealth enough not only to have sup- 
ported them hitherto in a much higher degree of com- 
fort than that in which they have lived, but to have 
enabled them to pay their own passage across the At- 
lantic, if they wanted to come, and to have given them 
on landing here a capital sufficient for a comfortable 
start. They are penniless only because they have been 
systematically robbed from the day of their birth to 
the day they left their native shores. 

A year ago I travelled through that part of Ireland 
from which these government-aided emigrants come. 
What surprises an American at first, even in Con- 
naught, is the apparent sparseness of population, and 
he wonders if this can indeed be that over-populated 
Ireland of which he has heard so much. There is 
plenty of good land, but on it are only fat beasts, and 
sheep so clean and white that you at first think that 
they must be washed and combed every morning. 
Once this soil was tilled and was populous, but now 
you will find only traces of ruined hamlets, and here 
and there the miserable hut of a herd, who lives in 
a way no Terra del Fuegan could envy. For the 
''owners" of this land, who live in London and Paris, 
many of them never having seen their estates, find 
cattle more profitable than men, and so the men have 
been driven off. It is only when you reach the bog and 
the rocks, in the mountains and by the seashore, tliat 
you find a dense population. Here they are crowd- 
ed together on land on which Nature never intended 
men to live. It is too poor for grazing, so the people 



DUMPING GARBAGE. II9 

Ivho have been driven from the better land are allowed 
to live upon it — as long as they pay their rent. If it 
ivere not too pathetic, the patches they call fields 
ivould make you laugh. Originally the surface of the 
g'round must have been about as susceptible of culti- 
vation as the surface of Broadway. But at the cost 
of enormous labor the small stones have been picked 
off and piled up, though the great boulders remain, 
so that it is impossible to use a plow ; and the surface 
of the bog has been cut away, and manured by sea- 
weed brought from the shore on the backs of men and 
women, till it can be made to grow something. 

For such patches of rock and bog — soil it could not 
be called, save by courtesy — which has been made to 
produce anything only by their unremitting toil — these 
people are compelled to pay their absentee landlords 
rents varying from a pound to four pounds per acre, 
and then they must pay another rent for the seaweed, 
which the surf of the wild Atlantic throws upon the 
shore, before they are permitted to take it for manure, 
and another rent still for the bog from which they cut 
their turf. As a matter of fact, these people have to 
pay more for the land than they can get out of the 
land. They are really forced to pay not merely for 
the use of the land and for the use of the ocean, but 
for the use of the air. Their rents are made up, and 
they manage to live in good times, by the few shillings 
earned by the ivomen, who knit socks as they carry 
their creels to and from the market or seashore ; by 
the earnings of the men, who go over to England every 
year to work as harvesters, or by remittances sent 
home by husbands or children who have managed 
to get to America. In spite of their painful industry 
the poverty of these people is appalling. In good 



I20 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

times they just manage to keep above the starvation 
line. In bad times, when a blight strikes their po- 
tatoes, they must eat seaweed, or beg relief from the 
poor-rates, or from tlie charitable contributions of the 
w^orld. When so rich as to have a few chickens or a 
pig, they no more think of eating them than Vander- 
bilt thinks of eating his $50,000 trotters. They are 
sold to help pay the rent. In the Ipughs you may see 
fat salmon swimming in from the sea ; but, if every 
one of them were marked by nature w^ith the inscrip- 
tion, " Lord So-and-So, London, with the compliments 
of God Almighty," they could not be more out of the 
reach of these people. The best shops to be found in 
the villages will have for stock a few pounds of sugar 
and tea weighed out into ounce and half-ounce papers, 
a little flour, two or three red petticoats, a little coarse 
cloth, a few yards of flannel, and a few of cotton, some 
buttons and thread, a little pig-tail tobacco, and, per- 
haps, a bottle or two of "the native " hid away in the 
ground some distance from the cabin, so that if the 
police do capture it the shopkeeper cannot be put in 
jail. For the Queen must live and the army must be 
supported, and the great distillers of Dublin and Bel- 
fast and Cork, who find such a comfortable monopoly 
in the excise, have churches to build and cathedrals to 
renovate. So poor are these people, so little is there in 
their miserable cabins, that a sub-sheriff who, last year, 
superintended the eviction of near one hundred fam- 
ilies in one place, declared that the effects of the whole 
lot were not worth ^3. 

But the landlords — ah ! the landlords ! — they live dif- 
ferently. Every now and again in travelling through 
this country you come across some landlord's palatial 
home mansion, its magnificent grounds inclosed with 



DUMPING GARBAGE. 121 

high walls. Pass inside these walls and it is almost like 
entering another world. Wide stretches of rich velvety- 
lawn, beds of bright flowers, noble avenues of arching 
trees, and a spacious mansion rich with every appoint- 
ment of luxury, with its great stables, kennels, and ap- 
purtenances of every kind. But though they may have 
these luxurious home places, the large landlords, with 
few exceptions, live in London or Paris, or pass part 
of the year in the great cities and the rest in Switzer- 
land or Italy or along the shores of the Mediterranean ; 
and occasionally one of them takes a trip over here to 
see our new country, with its magnificent opportunities 
for investing in wild lands which will soon be as valu- 
able as English or Irish estates. They do not have to 
work ; their incomes come without work on their part 
— all they have to do is to spend. Some collect galleries 
of the most valuable paintings, some are fanciers of old 
books, and give fabulous prices for rare editions. Some 
of them gamble, some keep studs of racers and costly 
yachts, and some get rid of their money in ways worse 
than these. Even their agents, whose business it is to 
extort the rent from the Irishmen who do work, live 
luxuriously. But it all comes out of the earnings of 
just such people as are now being dumped on our 
wharves — out of their earnings, or out of what is sent 
them by relatives in America, or by charitable contri- 
butions. 

It is to maintain such a system of robbery as this that 
Ireland is filled with policemen and troops and spies and 
informers, and a people who might be an integral part 
of the British nation are made to that nation a difficulty, 
a weakness and a danger. Economically, the Irish land- 
lords are of no more use than so many great, ravenous, 
destructive beasts — packs of wolves, herds of wild ele- 



122 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

phants, or such dragons as St. George is reported to 
have killed. They produce nothing ; they only con- 
sume and destroy. And what they destroy is more even 
than what they consume. For, not merely is Ireland 
turned into a camp of military police and red-coated 
soldiery to hold down the people while they are robbed ; 
but the wealth producers, stripped of capital by this 
robbery of their earnings, and condemned by it to pov- 
erty and ignorance, are unable to produce the wealth 
which they could and would produce did labor get its 
full earnings, and were wealth left to those who make 
it. Surely true statesmanship would suggest that if any 
one is to be shovelled out of a country it should be those 
w^ho merely consume and destroy ; not those who pro- 
duce wealth. 

But English statesmen think otherwise, and these 
surplus Irish men and women ; these garbage Irish men 
and women and little children — surplus and garbage 
because the landlords of Ireland have no use for them, 
are shovelled out of their own country and dumped on 
our wharves. They have reached " the land of the free 
and the home of the brave" just in time for the Fourth 
of July, when they may hear the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, with its ringing assertion of unalienable 
rights, read again in our annual national celebration. 

Have they, then, escaped from the system w^hich in 
their own country made them serfs and human gar- 
bage ? Not at all. They have not even escaped the 
power of their old landlords to take from them the pro- 
ceeds of their toil. 

For we are not merely getting these surplus tenants 
of English, Scotch and Irish landlords — we are getting 
the landlords, too. Simultaneously with this emigra- 
tion is going on a movement which is making the land- 



DUMPING GARBAGE. 123 

lords and capitalists of Great Britain owners of vast 
tracts of American soil. There is even now scarcely a 
large landowning family in Great Britain that does not 
own even larger American estates, and American land 
is becoming with them a more and more favorite invest- 
ment. These American estates of '' their graces " and 
"my lords" are not as yet as valuable as their home 
estates, but the natural increase in our population, 
augmented by emigration, will soon make them so. 

Every " surplus " Irishman, Englishman or Scotch- 
man sent over here assists directly in sending up the 
value of land and the rent of land. The stimulation of 
emigration from the Old Country to this is a bright 
idea on the part of these landlords of two continents. 
They get rid of people who, at home, in hard tunes, 
they might ha^^e to support in some sort of fashion, and 
lessen, as they think, the forces of disaffection, while at 
the same time they augment the value of their Ameri- 
can estates. 

It is not improbable that some of these evicted ten- 
ants may find themselves over here paying rent to the 
very same landlords to swell whose incomes they have 
so long toiled in their old country; but whether this 
be so or not, their mere coming here, by its effect in in- 
creasing the demand for land, helps to enable those 
landlords to compel some others of the people of the 
United States to give up to them a portion of their 
earnings in return for the privilege of living upon 
American soil. It is merely with this view, and for 
this purpose, that the landlords of the Old World are 
buying so much land in the New. Tliey do not want 
it to live upon ; they prefer to live in London or Paris, 
as many of the privileged classes of America are now 
learning to prefer to live. They do not want to work 



124 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

it ; they do not propose to work at all. All they want 
with it is the power, which, as soon as our population 
increases a little, its ownership will give of demanding 
the earnings of other people. And under present con- 
ditions it is a matter, not of a generation or two, but 
only of a few years, before they will be able to draw 
from their American estates sums even greater than 
from their Irish estates. That is to say, they will virtu- 
ally own more Americans than they now own Irishmen. 
So far from these Irish immigrants having escaped 
from the system that has impoverished and pauper- 
ized the masses of the Irish people for the benefit of 
a few of their number, that system has really more un- 
restricted sway here than in Ireland. In spite of the 
fact that we read the Declaration of Independence 
every Fourth of July, make a great nofse and have a 
great jubilation, that first of the unalienable rights witli 
which every man is endowed by his Creator — the equal 
right to the use of the natural elements without which 
wealth cannot be produced, nor even life maintained 
— is no better acknowledged with us than it is in Ire- 
land. 

There is much said of " Irish landlordism," as though 
it were a peculiar kind of landlordism, or a peculiarly 
bad kind of landlordism. This is not so, Irish land- 
lordism is in nothing worse than English landlordism, 
or Scotch landlordism, or American landlordism, nor 
are the Irish landlords harder than any similar class. 
Being generally men of education and culture, accus- 
tomed to an easy life, they are, as a whole, less grasp- 
ing toward their tenants than the farmers who rent of 
them are to the laborers to v/hom they sublet. They 
regard the land as their own, that is all, and expect 
to get an income from it ; and the agent who sends 



DUMPING GARBAGE. 125 

them the best income they naturally regard as the best 
agent. 

Such popular Irish leaders as Mr. Parnell and Mr. Sul- 
livan, when they come over here and make speeches, 
have a good deal to say about the "feudal landlordism " 
of Ireland. This is all humbug — an attempt to conVey 
the impression that Irish landlordism is something dif- 
ferent from American landlordism, so that" American 
landowners will not take offence, while Irisll landowners 
are denounced. There is in Ireland nothing that can 
be called feudal landlordism. All Tne power which the 
Irish landlord has, all the tyranny which he exercises, 
springs from his ownership of the soil, from the legal 
recognition that it is his property. If landlordism in 
Ireland seems more hateful than in England, it is only 
because the industrial organization is more primitive, 
and there are fewer intermediaries between the man 
who is robbed and the man who gets the plunder. And 
if either Irish or English landlordism seems more hate- 
ful than the same system in America, it is only because 
this is a new country, not yet quite fenced in. But, 
as a matter of law, these " my lords " and " your graces," 
w^ho are now getting themselves far greater estates in 
the United States than they have in their own country, 
have more power as landlords here than there. 

In Ireland, especially, the tendency of legislation for 
a series of years has been to restrain the power of the 
landlord in dealing with the tenant. In the United 
States he has in all its fulness the unrestricted power of 
doing as he pleases with his own. Rack-renting is 
with us the common, almost the exclusive, form of rent- 
ing. There is no long process to be gone through with 
to secure an eviction, no serving notice upon the re- 
lieving officer of the district. The tenant whom the 



126 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

landlord wants to get rid of can be evicted with the 
minimum of cost and expense. 

Says the Tribune's " Broadway Lounger " incidentally 
in his chatter : 

Judge Geclney tells me that on the first of this month he signed m 
less»than two hundred and fifty warrants of dispossession against pocr 
tenants. His district includes many blocks of the most squalid variety 
of tenement-houses, and he has fully as much unpleasant work of this 
kind as any of i,\s judicial brethren. The first of May is, of course, the 
heaviest field-day vf the year for such business, but there are generally at 
the beginning of evefy, month at least one hundred warrants granted. 
And to those who fret about the minor miseries of life, no more whole- 
S3me cure could be administered than an enforced attendance in a 
district court on such occasions. The lowest depths of misery are 
sounded. Judge Gedney says, too, that in the worst cases the suffer- 
ing is more generally caused by misfortune than by idleness or dissipa- 
tion. A man gets a felon on his hand, which keeps him at home un- 
til his savings are gone and all his effects are in the pawnshop, and 
then his children fall sick or his wife dies, and the agent of the house, 
under instructions from the owner, who is perhaps in Europe enjoying 
himself, won't wait for the rent, and serves him with a summons. 

A while ago, w^hen it was bitter cold, I read in the 
papers an item telling how, in the city of Wilkesbarre, 
Pa., a woman and her three children were found one 
night huddled in a hogshead on a vacant lot, famished 
and almost frozen. The story was a simple one. The 
man, out of work, had tried to steal, and been sent to 
prison. Their rent unpaid, their landlord had evicted 
them, and as the only shelter they knew of, they had 
gone to the hogshead. In Ireland, bad as it is, the 
relieving-officer would have had to be by to have offered 
them at least the shelter of the almshouse. 

These Irish men and women who are being dumped 
on our wharves with two or three dollars in their 
pockets, do they find access to nature any freer here 
than there ? Far out in the West, if they know where 



OVER-PRODUCTION. 127 

to go, and can get there, they may, for a little while 
yet ; but though they may see even around New York 
plenty of unused land, they will find that it all belongs 
to somebody. Let them go to work at Avhat they will, 
they must, here as there, give up some of their earn- 
ings for the privilege of working, and pay some other 
human creature for the privilege of living. On the 
whole their chances will be better here than there, for 
this is yet a new country, and a century ago our settle- 
ments only fringed the eastern seaboard of a vast con- 
tinent. But from the Atlantic to the Pacific we already 
have our human garbage, the volume of which some 
of this Irish human garbage will certainly go to swell. 
Wherever you go throughout the country the '' tramp " 
is known ; and in this metropolitian city there are al- 
ready, it is stated by the Charity Organization Society, 
a quarter of a million people who live on alms ! What, 
in a few years more, are we to do for a dumping-ground ? 
Will it make our difficulty the less that our human 
garbage can vote ? 



CHAPTER XII. 

OVER-PR ODUC TION. 



That, as declared by the French Assembly, public 
misfortunes and corruptions of government spring from 
ignorance, neglect or contempt of human rights, may 
be seen from whatever point we look. 

Consider this matter of '' over-production " of which 
we hear so much — to which is so comonly attributed 
dulness of trade and the difficulty of finding employ- 
ment. What, when we come to think of it, can be 



128 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

more preposterous than to speak in any general sense 
of over-production ? Over-production of wealth when 
there is everywhere a passionate struggle for more 
wealth ; when so many must stint and strain and con- 
trive, to get a living ; when there is poverty and actual 
want among large classes ! Manifestly there cannot 
be over-production, in any general and absolute sense, 
until desires for wealth are all satisfied ; until no one 
wants more wealth. 

Relative over-production, of course, there may be. 
The production of certain commodities may be so far 
in excess of the proper proportion to the production 
of other commodities that the whole quantity produced 
cannot be exchanged for enough of those other com- 
modities to give the usual returns to the labor and 
capital engaged in bringing them to market. But this 
relative over-production is merely disproportionate 
production. It may proceed from increased produc- 
tion of things of one kind, or from decreased produc- 
tion of things of other kinds. 

Thus, what we would call an over-production of 
watches — meaning not that more watches had been 
produced than were wanted, but that more had been 
produced than could be sold at a remunerative price — 
would be purely relative. It might arise from an in- 
crease in the production of watches, outrunning the 
ability to purchase watches ; or from a decrease in the 
production of other things, lessening the ability to 
purchase watches. No matter how much the produc- 
tion of watches were to increase, within the limits of 
the desire for watches, it would not be over-production, 
if at the same time the production of other things in- 
creased sufficiently to allow a proportionally increased 
quantity of other things to be given for the increased 



OVER-PRODUC7VOiV, 129 

quantity of watches. And no matter how much the 
production of watches might be decreased, there would 
be relative over-production, if at the same time the 
production of other things were decreased in such pro- 
portion as to diminish in greater degree the ability to 
give other things for watches. 

In short, desire continuing, the over-production of 
particular commodities can only be relative to the pro- 
duction of other commodities, and may result from 
unduly increased production in some branches of in- 
dustry, or from the checking of production in other 
branches. But while the phenomena of over-produc- 
tion may thus arise from causes directly operating to 
increase production, or from causes directly operating 
to check production, just as the equipoise of a pair of 
scales may be disturbed by the addition or the removal 
of a weight, there are certain symptoms by which we 
may determine from which of these two kinds of causes 
any disturbance proceeds. For while to a limited ex- 
tent, and in a limited field, these diverse causes may 
produce similar effects, their general effects will be 
widely different. The increase of production in any 
branch of industry tends to the general increase of 
production ; the checking of production in any branch 
of industry tends to the general checking of production. 

This may be seen from the different general effects 
w^hich follow increase or diminution of production in 
the same branch of industry. Let us suppose that from 
the discovery of new mines, the improvement of ma- 
chinery, the breaking up of combinations that control 
it, or any other cause, there is a great and rapid in- 
crease in the production of coal, out of proportion to 
the increase of other production. In a free market the 
price of coal therefore falls. The effect is to enable all 



130 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

consumers of coal to somewhat increase their consump- 
tion of coal, and to somewhat increase their consump- 
tion of other things, and to stimulate production, by 
reducing cost, in all those branches of industry into 
which the use of coal directly or indirectly enters. 
Thus the general effect is to increase production, and 
to beget a tendency to re-establish the equilibrium be- 
tween the production of coal and the production of 
other things, by raising the aggregate production. 

But let the coal operators and syndicates, as they fre- 
quently do, determine to stop or reduce the production 
of coal in order to raise prices. At once a large body 
of men engaged in producing coal find their power of 
purchasing cut off or decreased. Their demand for 
commodities they habitually use thus falls off ; demand 
and production in other branches of industry are les- 
sened, and other consumers, in turn, are obliged to 
decrease their demands. At the same time the en- 
hancement in the price of coal tends to increase the 
cost of production in all branches of industry in which 
coal is used, and to diminish the amount both of coal 
and of other things which the users of coal can call 
for. Thus the check to production is perpetuated 
through all branches of industry, and when the re-es- 
tablishment of equilibrium between the production of 
coal and the production of other things is effected, it 
is on a diminished scale of aggregate production. 

All trade, it is to be remembered, is the exchange of 
commodities for commodities — money being merely 
the measure of values and the instrument for conven- 
iently and economically effecting exchanges. Demand 
(which is a different thing from desire, as it involves 
purchasing power) is the asking for things in exchange 
for an equivalent value of other things. Supply is the 



over-production: 131 

offering of things in exchange for an equivalent value 
of other things. These terms are therefore relative ; 
demand involves supply, and supply involves demand. 
Whatever increases the quantity of things offered in 
exchange for other things at once increases supply and 
augments demand. And, reversely, whatever checks 
the bringing of things to market at once reduces supply 
and decreases demand. 

Thus, while the same primary effect upon the rela- 
tive supply of and demand for any particular com- 
modity or group of commodities m.ay be caused either 
by augmentation of the supply of such commodities, or 
by reduction in the supply of other comniodities — in 
the one case, the general effect will be to stimulate trade 
by calling out greater supplies of other commodities, 
and increasing aggregate demand ; and in the other 
case, to depress trade, by lessening aggregate demand 
and diminishing supply. The equation of supply and 
demand between agricultural productions and manu- 
factured goods might thus be altered in the same di- 
rection and to the same extent by such prosperous sea- 
sons or improvements in agriculture as would reduce 
the price of agricultural productions as compared with 
manufactured goods, or by such restrictions upon the 
production or excliange of manufactured goods as would 
raise their price as compared with agricultural produc- 
tions. But in the one case, the aggregate produce of 
the community would be increased. There would not 
only be an increase of agricultural products, but the 
increased demand thus caused would stimulate the 
production of manufactured goods ; while this pros- 
perity in manufacturing industries, by enabling those 
engaged in them to increase their demand for agricul- 
tural productions, would react upon agriculture. In 



132 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

the other case, the aggregate produce would be de- 
creased. The increase in tlie price of manufactured 
goods would compel farmers to reduce their demands, 
and this would in turn reduce the ability of those en- 
gaged in manufacturing to demand farm products. 
Thus trade would slacken, and production be checked 
in all directions. That this is so, we may see from the 
different general effects which result from good crops 
and poor crops, though to an individual farmer high 
prices may compensate for a poor yield. 

To recapitulate : Relative over-production may pro- 
ceed from causes which increase, or from causes which 
diminish, production. But increased production in any 
branch of industry tends to increase production in all ; 
to stimulate trade and augment the general prosperity ; 
and any disturbance of equilibrium thus caused must 
be speedily readjusted. Diminished production in any 
branch of industry, on the other hand, tends to decrease 
production in all ; to depress trade, and lessen the 
general prosperity; and depression thus produced tends 
to perpetuate itself through larger circles, as in one 
branch of industry after another the check to produc- 
tion reduces the power to demand the products of other 
branches of industry. 

Whoever will consider the widespread phenomena 
which are currently attributed to over-production can 
have no doubt from which of these two classes of causes 
they spring. He will see that they are symptoms, not 
of the excess of production, but of the restriction and 
strangulation of production. 

There are with us many restrictions of production, 
direct and indirect ; for production, it must be remem- 
bred, involves the transportation and exchange as well 
as the making of things. And restrictions imposed 



O VER-PR OD UCTIOJV. 



^33 



upon commerce or any of its instruments may operate 
to discourage production as fully as restrictions im- 
posed upon agriculture or manufactures. The tariff 
which we maintain for the express purpose of hamper- 
ing our foreign commerce, and restricting the free ex- 
change of our own productions for the productions of 
other nations, is in effect a restriction upon production. 
The monopolies which we have created or permitted to 
grow up, and which levy their toll upon internal com- 
merce, or by conspiracy and combination diminish sup- 
ply, and artificially enhance prices, restrict production 
in the same way ; while the taxes levied upon certain 
manufactures by our internal revenue system directly 
restrict production.* 

* Whether taxes upon liquor and tobacco can be defended upon 
other grounds is not here in question. What Adam Smith says upon 
this point may, however, be worth quoting : 

If we consult experience, the cheapness of wine seems to be a cause, 
not of drunkenness, but of sobriety. The inhabitants of the wine coun- 
tries are in general the soberest people in Europe ; witness the Span- 
iards, the Italians, and the inhabitants of the southern provinces of 
France. People are seldom guilty of excess in what is their daily fare. 
Nobody affects the character of liberality and good fellowship, by being 
profuse of a liquor which is as cheap as small beer. On the contrary, 
in the countries which, either from excessive heat or cold, produce no 
grapes, and where wine consequently is dear, and a rarity, drunkenness 
is a common vice, as among the northern nations, and all those who 
live between the tropics — the negroes^ for example, on the coast of 
Guinea. When a French regiment comes from some of the northern 
provinces of France, where wine is somewhat dear, to be quartered in 
the southern, where it is very cheap, the soldiers, I have frequently 
heard it observed, are at first debauched by the cheapness and novelty 
of good wine ; but after a few months' residence, the greater part of 
them become as sober as the rest of the inhabitants. Were the duties 
upon foreign wines, and the excises upon malt, beer, and ale, to be 
taken away all at once, it might, in the same manner, occasion in Great 
Britain a pretty general and temporary drunkenness among the middle 
and inferior ranks of people, which would probably be soon followed 
by a permanent and almost universal sobriety. At present, drunken- 
ness is by no means the vice of people of fashion, or of those who can 



134 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

So, too, is production discouraged by the direct taxes 
levied by our states, counties and municipalities, which 
in the aggregate exceed the taxation of the Federal Gov- 
ernment. These taxes are generally levied upon all 
property, real and personal, at the same rate, and fall 
partly on land, which is not the result of production, 
and partly on things which are the result of production ; 
but insomuch as buildings and improvements are not 
only thus taxed, but the land so built upon and im- 
proved is universally rated at a much higher assess- 
ment, and generally at a very much higher assessment, 
than unused land of the same quality,* even the tax- 
ation that falls upon land values largely operates as a 
deterrent to production. 

To produce, to improve, is thus fraught with a pen- 
alty. We, in fact, treat the man who produces wealth, 
or accumulates wealth, as though he had done some- 
thing which public policy calls upon us to discourage. 
If a house is erected, or a steamship or a factory is 
built, ciown comes the tax-gatherer to fine the men 
who have done such things. If a farmer go upon va- 
cant land, which is adding nothing to the wealth of the 
community, reclaim it, cultivate it, cover it with crops, 
or stock it with cattle, we not only make him pay for 
having thus increased wealth, but, as an additional 



easily afford the most expensive liquors. A gentleman drunk with ale 
has scarce ever been seen among us. The restraints upon the vvine 
trade in Great Britain, besides, do not so much seem calculated to 
hinder the people from going, if I may say so, to the ale house, as from 
going M^here they can buy the best and cheapest liquor. — Wealth of 
jVations, Book IV., Chap. III. 

* This arises from the widely spread but utterly false notion that 
property should only pay taxes in proportion to the income it yields. 
In Great Britain, this is carried to such a pitch of absurdity that unused 
land pays no taxes, no matter how valuable it may be. 



O VER-PR OD UCTIOJV. 135 

discouragement to the doing of such things, we tax 
him very much more on the value of his land than we 
do the man who holds an equal piece idle. So, too, 
if a man saves, our taxes operate to punish him for his 
thrift. Thus is production checked in every direction. 

But this is not all. There is with us a yet greater 
check to production. 

If there be in this universe superior intelligences en- 
gaged, with higher powers, in the study of its infinite 
marvels, who sometimes examine the speck we tenant 
with such studious curiosity as our microscopists watch 
the denizens of a drop of water, the manner in which, 
in such a country as this, population is distributed, 
must greatly puzzle them. In our cities they find peo- 
ple packed together so closely that they live over one 
another in tiers ; in the country they see people sep- 
arated so widely that they lose all the advantages of 
neighborhood. They see buildings going up in the 
outskirts of our towns, while much more available lots 
remain vacant. They see men going great distances to 
cultivate land while there is yet plenty of land to culti- 
vate in the localities from which they come and through 
which they pass. And as these higher intelligences 
watch this process of settlement through whatever sort 
of microscopes they may require to observe such creat- 
ures as we, they must notice that, for the most part, 
these settlers, instead of being attracted by each other, 
leave between each other large patches of unused land. 
If there be in the universe any societies which have the 
same relation to us as our learned societies have to ants 
and animalculae, these phenomena must lead to no end 
of curious theories. 

Take in imagination such a bird's-eye view of the 
city of New York as might be had from a balloon. 



136 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

The houses are climbing heavenward — ten, twelve, 
even fifteen stories, tier on tier of people, living, one 
family above another, without sufficient water, without 
sufficient light or air, without playground or breathing 
space. So close is the building that the streets look 
like narrow rifts in the brick and m.ortar, and from 
street to street the solid blocks stretch until they al- 
most meet ; in the newer districts only a space of 
twenty feet, a mere crack in the masonry through 
which at high noon a sunbeam can scarcely struggle 
down, being left to separate tlie backs of the tenements 
fronting on one street from the backs of those fronting 
on another street. Yet, around this city, and within 
easy access of its centre, there is plenty of vacant land ; 
within the city limits, in fact, not one-half the land is 
built upon ; and many blocks of tall tenement-houses 
are surrounded by vacant lots. If the improvement 
of our telescopes were to show us on another planet, 
lakes where the water, instead of presenting a level 
surface, ruffied only by the action of the wind, stood 
up here and there in huge columns, it could hardly 
perplex us more than these phenomena must perplex 
such extramundane intelligences as I have supposed. 
How is it, they may well speculate, that the pressure 
of population which piles families, tier on tier, above 
each other, and raises such towering warehouses and 
workshops, does not cover this vacant land with build- 
ings and with homes ? Some restraining cause there 
must be ; but what, it might well puzzle them to tell. 

A South Sea Islander, however — one of the old 
heathen sort, whom, in civilizing, we have well nigh 
exterminated, might make a guess. If one of their 
High Chiefs tabooed a place or object, no one of the 
common sort of these superstitious savages dare use 



over-production: 137 

or touch it. He must go around for miles rather than 
set his foot on a tabooed path ; must parch or die with 
thirst rather than drink of a tabooed spring ; must go 
hungry though the fruit of a tabooed grove rotted on 
the ground before his eyes. A South Sea Islander 
would say that this vacant land must be "taboo." And 
he would be not far from the truth. This land is 
vacant, simply because it is cursed by that form of the 
taboo which we superstitiously venerate under the 
names of " private property " and '''■ vested rights." 

The invisible barrier but for which buildings would 
rise and the city would spread, is the high price of 
land, a price that increases the more certainly it is 
seen that a growing population needs the land. Thus 
the stronger the incentive to the use of land, the 
higher the barrier that arises against its use. Tene- 
ment-houses are built among vacant lots because the 
price that must be paid for land is so great that people 
who have not large means must economize their use of 
land by living one family above another. 

While in all of our cities the value of land, which in- 
creases not merely with their growth, but with the ex- 
pectation of growth, thus operates to check building 
and improvement, its effect is manifested through the 
country in a somewhat different way. Instead of un- 
duly crowding people together, it unduly separates 
them. The expectation of profit from the rise in the 
value of land leads those who take up new land, not 
to content themselves with what they may most 
profitably use, but to get all the land they can, even 
though they must let a great part of it lie idle ; and 
large tracts are seized upon by those who make no 
pretence of using any part of it, but merely calculate 
to make a profit out of others who in time will be 



138 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

driven to use it. Thus population is scattered, not 
only to loss of all the comforts, refinements, pleasures 
and stimulations that come from neighborhood, but 
to the great loss of productive power. The extra 
cost of constructing and maintaining roads and rail- 
ways, the greater distances over which produce and 
goods must be transported, the difficulties which sep- 
aration interposes to that commerce between men 
which is necessary even to the ruder forms of modern 
production, all retard and lessen production. While 
just as the high value of land in and about a great city 
makes more difficult the erection of buildings, so does 
increase in the value of agricultural land make im- 
provement difficult. The higher the value of land the 
more capital does the farmer require if he buys out- 
right ; or, if he buys on instalments, or rents, the more 
of his earnings must he give up every year. Men 
who would eagerly improve and cultivate land could it 
be had for the using are thus turned away — to wander 
long distances and waste their means in looking for 
better opportunities ; to swell the ranks of those seek- 
ing for employment as wage workers ; to go back to 
the cities or manufacturing villages in the endeavor to 
make a living ; or to remain idle, frequently for long 
periods, and sometimes until they become utterly de- 
moralized and worse than useless tramps. 

Thus is production checked in those vocations 
which form the foundation for all others. This check 
to the production of some forms of wealth lessens de- 
mand for other forms of wealth, and so the effect is 
propagated from one branch of industry to another, 
begetting the phenomena that are spoken of as over- 
production, but which are primarily due to restricted 
production. 



O VER-PR OD UCTION. 139 

And as land values tend to rise, not merely with the 
growth of population and wealth, but with the expec- 
tation of that growth, thus enlisting in pushing on the 
upward movement, the powerful and illusive sentiment 
of hope, there is a constant tendency, especially strong 
in rapidly growing countries, to carry up the price of 
land beyond the point at which labor and capital can 
profitably engage in production, and the only check to 
this is the refusal of labor and capital to so engage. 
This tendency becomes peculiarly strong in recurring 
periods, when the fever of speculation runs high, and 
leads at length to a correspondingly general and sud- 
den check to production, which propagating itself (by 
checking demand) through all branches of industry, is 
the main cause of those paroxysms known as commer- 
cial or industrial depressions, and which are marked 
by wasting capital, idle labor, stocks of goods that can- 
not be sold without loss, and widespread want and 
suffering. It is true that other restrictions upon the 
free play of productive forces operate to promote, in- 
tensify and continue these dislocations of the indus- 
trial system, but that here is the main and primary 
cause I think there can be no doubt. 

And this, perhaps, is even more clear : That from 
whatever cause disturbance of industrial and commer- 
cial relations may originally come, these periodical de- 
pressions in which demand and supply seem unable to 
meet and satisfy each other could not become wide- 
spread and persistent did productive forces have free 
access to land Nothing like general and protracted 
congestion of capital and labor could take place were 
this natural vent open. The moment symptoms of rel- 
ative over-production manifested themselves in any de- 
rivative branch of industry, the turning of capital and 



.I40 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

labor toward those occupations which extract wealth 
from the soil would give relief. 

Thus may we see that those public misfortunes which 
we speak of as " business stagnation " and " hard times," 
tiiose public misfortunes that in periods of intensity- 
cause more loss and suffering than great wars, spring 
truly from our ignorance and contempt of human rights ; 
from our disregard of the equal and inalienable right of 
all men to freely apply to nature for the satisfaction of 
their needs, and to retain for their own uses the full 
fruits of their labor. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



UNEMPLOYED LABOR. 



How contempt of human rights is the essential ele- 
ment in building up the great fortunes whose growth 
is such a marked feature of our development, we have 
already seen. And just as clearly may we see that from 
the same cause spring poverty and pauperism. The 
tramp is the complement of the millionaire. 

Consider this terrible phenomenon, the tramp — an 
appearance more menacing to the republic than that 
of hostile armies and fleets bent on destruction. What 
is the tramp ? In the beginning, he is a man able to work, 
and willing to work, for the satisfaction of his needs ; 
but who, not finding opportunity to work where he is, 
starts out in quest of it ; who, failing in this search, is, 
in a later stage, driven by those imperative needs to beg 
or to steal, and so, losing self-respect, loses all that 
animates and elevates and stimulates a man to struggle 



UNEMPLOYED LABOR. 141 

and to labor ; becomes a vagabond and an outcast — a 
poisonous pariah, avenging on society the wrong that 
he keenly, but vaguely, feels has been done him by 
society. 

Yet the tramp, known as he is now from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific, is only a part of the phenomenon. Be- 
hind him, though not obtrusive, save in what we call 
'' hard times," there is, even in what we now consider 
normal times, a great mass of unemployed labor which 
is unable, unwilling, or not yet forced to tramp, but 
which bears to the tramp the same relation that the 
submerged part of an iceberg does to that much smaller 
part which shows above the surface. 

The difficulty which so many men who would gladly 
work to satisfy their needs find in obtaining opportunity 
of doing so, is so common as to occasion no surprise, 
nor, save when it becomes particularly intensified, to 
arouse any inquiry. We are so used to it, that although 
we all know that work is in itself distasteful, and that 
there never yet was a human being who wanted work for 
the sake of work, we have got into the habit of thinking 
and talking as though work were in itself a boon. So 
deeply is this idea implanted in the common mind 
that we maintain a policy based on the notion that the 
more work we do for foreign nations and the less we 
allow them to do for us, the better off we shall be ; and 
in public and in private we hear men lauded and enter- 
prises advocated because they "furnish employment ;" 
while there are many who, w^ith more or less definite- 
ness, hold the idea that labor-saving inventions have 
operated injuriously by lessening the amount of work 
to be done. 

Manifestly, work is not an end, but a means ; mani- 
festly, there can be no real scarcity of work, which is 



142 



SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 



but the means of satisfying material wants, until hu- 
man wants are all satisfied. How, then, shall we ex- 
plain the obvious facts that lead men to think and 
speak as though work were in itself desirable ? 

When we consider that labor is the producer of all 
wealth, the creator of all values, is it not strange that 
labor should experience difficulty in finding employ- 
ment ? The exchange for commodities of that which 
gives value to all commodities, ought to be the most 
certain and easy of exchanges. One wishing to ex- 
change labor for food or clothing, or any of the mani- 
fold things which labor produces, is like one wishing 
to exchange gold-dust for coin, cotton for cloth, or 
wheat for flour. Nay, this is hardly a parallel ; for, as 
the terms upon which the exchange of labor for com- 
modities takes place are usually that the labor is first 
rendered, the man who offers labor in exchange gen- 
erally proposes to produce and render value before 
value is returned to him. 

This being the case, why is not the competition of em- 
ployers to obtain workmen as gieat as the competition 
of workmen to find employment ? Why is it that we do 
not consider the man who does work as the obliging par- 
ty, rather than the man who, as we say, furnishes work ? 

So it necessarily would be, if in saying that labor is 
the producer of wealth, we stated the whole case. But 
labor is only the producer of wealth in the sense of 
being the active factor of production. For the pro- 
duction of wealth, labor must have access to pre-ex- 
isting substance and natural forces. Man has no 
power to bring something out of nothing. He cannot 
create an atom of matter or initiate the slightest mo- 
tion. Vast as are his powers of modifying matter and 
utilizing force, they are merely powers of adapting, 



UNEMPLOYED LABOR. 143 

changing, re-combining, what previously exists. The 
substance of the hand with which I write these lines, 
as of the paper on which I write, has previously formed 
the substance of other men and other animals, of 
plants, soils, rocks, atmospheres, probably of other 
worlds and other systems. And so of the force which 
impels my pen. All we know of it is that it has acted 
and reacted through what seem to us eternal circlings, 
and appears to reach this planet from the sun. The 
destruction of matter and motion, as the creation of 
matter and motion, are to us unthinkable. 

In the human being, in some mysterious way which 
neither the researches of physiologists nor the specula- 
tions of philosophers enable us to comprehend, con- 
scious, planning intelligence comes into control, for a 
limited time and to a limited extent, of the matter and 
motion contained in the human frame. The power of 
contracting and expanding human muscles is the initial 
force with which the human mind acts upon the ma- 
terial world. By the use of this power other powers 
are utilized, and the forms and relations of matter are 
changed in accordance with human desire. But how 
great soever be the power of affecting and using ex- 
ternal nature which human intelligence thus obtains, 
— and how great this may be we are only beginning 
now to realize, — it is still only the power of affecting 
and using what previously exists. Without access to 
external nature, without the power of availing himself 
of her substance and forces, man is not merely power- 
less to produce anything, he ceases to exist in the ma- 
terial world. He himself, in physical body at least, is 
but a changing form of matter, a passing mode of mo- 
tion, that must be continually drawn from the reser- 
voirs of external nature. 



144 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

Without either of the three elements, land, air and 
water, man could not exist ; but he is peculiarly a 
land animal, living on its surface, and drawing from it 
his supplies. Though he is able to navigate the ocean, 
and may some day be able to navigate the air, he can 
only do so by availing himself of materials drawn from 
land. Land is to him the great storehouse of materials 
and reservoir of forces upon which he must draw for 
his needs. And as wealth consists of materials and 
products of nature which have been secured, or modi- 
fied by human exertion so as to fit them for the satis- 
faction of human desires,* labor is the active factor in 
the production of wealth, but land is the passive fac- 
tor, without which labor can neither produce nor 
exist. 

All this is so obvious that it may seem like wasting 
space to state it. Yet, in this obvious fact lies the ex- 
planation of that enigma that to so many seems a hope- 
less puzzle — the labor question. What is inexplicable, 
if we lose sight of man's absolute and constant depend- 
ence upon land, is clear when we recognize it. 

Let us suppose, as well as we can, human society in 
a world as near as possible like our own, with one es- 
sential difference. Let us suppose this imaginary 
world and its inhabitants so constructed that men 
could support themselves in air, and could from the 
material of the air produce by their labor what they 
needed for nourishment and use. ' I do not mean to 
suppose a state of things in which men might float 
around like birds in the air or fishes in the ocean, sup- 

* However great be its utility, nothing can be counted as wealth 
unless it requires labor for its production ; nor however much labor has 
been required for its production, can anything retain the character of 
wealth longer than it can gratify desire. 



UNEMPLOYED LABOR. 145 

plying the prime necessities of animal life from wliat 
they could pick up. I am merely trying to suppose a 
state of things in which men as they are were relieved 
of absolute dependence upon land for a standing place 
and reservoir of material and forces. We will suppose 
labor to be as necessary as with us, human desires to 
be as boundless as with us, the cumulative power of 
labor to give to capital as much advantage as with us, 
and the division of labor to have gone as far as with us 
— the only difference being (the idea of claiming the 
air as private property not having been thought of ) 
that no human creature would be compelled to make 
terms with another in order to get a resting-place, and 
to obtain access to the materials and force without 
which labor cannot produce. In such a state of things, 
no matter how minute had become the division of la- 
bor, no matter how great had become the accumulation 
of capital, or how far labor-saving inventions had been 
carried, — there could never be anything that seemed 
like an excess of the supply of labor over the demand 
for labor ; there could never be any difficulty in find- 
ing employment ; and the spectacle of willing men, 
having in their own brains and muscles the power of 
supplying the needs of themselves and their families, 
yet compelled to beg for work or for alms, could never 
be witnessed. It being in the power of every one able 
to labor to apply his labor directly to the satisfaction 
of his needs without asking leave of any one else, that 
cut-throat competition, in which men who must find 
employment or starve are forced to bid against each 
other, could never arise. 

Variations there might be in the demand for particu- 
lar commodities or services, which would produce va- 
riations in the demand foir labor in different occupations, 
10 



146 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

and cause wages in those occupations to somewhat rise 
above or fall below the general level, but the ability of 
labor to employ itself, the freedom of indefinite expan- 
sion in the primary employments, would allow labor to 
accommodate itself to these variations, not merely with- 
out loss or suffering, but so easily that they would be 
scarcely noticed. For occupations shade into one an- 
other by imperceptible degrees, no matter how minute 
the division of labor — or, rather, the more minute the 
division of labor the more insensible the gradation — 
so that there are in each occupation enough who could 
easily pass to other occupations, to readily allow of 
such contractions and expansions as might in a state of 
freedom occur. The, possibility of indefinite expansion 
in the primary occupations, the ability of every one to 
make a living by resort to them would produce elas- 
ticity throughout the whole industrial system. 

Under such conditions capital could not oppress la- 
bor. At present, in any dispute between capital and 
labor, capital enjoys the enormous advantage of being 
better able to wait. Capital wastes when not employ- 
ed ; but labor starves. Where, however, labor could 
always employ itself, the disadvantage in any conflict 
would be on the side of capital, while that surplus of 
unemployed labor which enables capital to make such 
advantageous bargains with labor would not exist. The 
man who wanted to get others to work for him would 
not find men crowding for employment, but finding all 
labor already employed, would have to offer higher 
wages, in order to tempt them into his employment, 
than the men he wanted could make for themselves. 
The competition would be that of employers to obtain 
workmen, rather than that of workmen to get employ- 
ment, and thus the advantages which the accumu- 



UNEMPLOYED LABOR. 147 

lation of capital gives in the production of wealth 
would (save enough to secure the accumulation and em- 
ployment of capital) go ultimately to labor. In such a 
state of things, instead of thinking that the man who 
employed another was doing him a favor, we would 
rather look upon the man who went to work for an- 
other as the obliging party. 

To suppose that under such conditions there could 
be such inequality in the distribution of wealth as we 
now see, would require a more violent presumption 
than we have made in supposing air, instead of land, 
to be the element from which wealth is chiefly derived. 
But supposing existing inequalities to be translated 
into such a state, it is evident that large fortunes could 
avail little, and continue but a short time. Where there 
is always labor seeking employment on any terms ; 
where the masses earn only a bare living, and dismissal 
from employment means anxiety and privation, and 
even beggary or starvation, these large fortunes have 
monstrous power. But in a condition of things where 
there was no unemployed labor, Vv^here every one could 
make a living for himself and family without fear or 
favor, what could a hundred or five hundred millions 
avail in the way of enabling its possessor to extort or 
tyrannize ? 

The upper millstone alone cannot grind. That it 
may do so, the nether millstone as well is needed. No 
amount of force will break an eggshell if exerted on 
one side alone. So capital could not squeeze labor as 
long as labor was free to natural opportunities, and in 
a world where these natural materials and opportuni- 
ties were as free to all as is the air to us, there could 
be no difficulty in finding employment, no willing hands 
conjoined with hungry stomachs, no tendency of w^ages 



148 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

toward the minimum on which the worker could barely 
live. In such a world w^e would no more think of 
thanking anybody for furnishing us employment than 
we here think of thanking anybody for furnishing us 
with appetites. 

That the Creator might have put us in the kind of 
world I have sought to imagine, as readily as in this 
kind of a world, I have no doubt. Why He has not 
done so may, however, I think, be seen. That kind of 
a world would be best for fools. This is the best for men 
who will use the intelligence with which they have 
been gifted. Of this, however, I shall speak hereafter. 
What I am now trying to do by asking my readers to 
endeavor to imagine a world in which natural opportu- 
nities were as "free as air," is to show that the barriers 
which prevent labor from freely using land is the 
nether millstone against which labor is ground, the true 
cause of the difficulties which are apparent through 
the whole industrial organization. 

But it may be said, as I have often heard it said, 
"We do not all want land! We cannot all become 
farmers ! " 

To this I reply that we do all want land, though it 
may be in different ways and in varying degrees. With- 
out land no human being can live ; without land no 
human occupation can be carried on. Agriculture is 
not the only use of land. It is only one of many. And 
just as the uppermost story of the tallest building rests 
upon land as truly as the lowest, so is the operative as 
truly a user of land as is the farmer. As all wealth is 
in the last analysis the resultant of land and labor, so 
is all production in the last analysis the expenditure 
of labor upon land. 

Nor is it true that we could not all become farmers. 



UNEMPLOYED LABOR. 149 

That is the one thing that we might all become. If all 
men were merchants, or tailors, or mechanics, all men 
would soon starve. But there have been, and still ex- 
ist, societies in which all get their living directly from 
nature. The occupations that resort directly to nature 
are the primitive occupations, from which, as society 
progresses, all others are differentiated. No matter 
how complex the industrial organization, these must 
always remain the fundamental occupations, upon 
which all other occupations rest, just as the upper 
stories of a building rest upon the foundation. Now, 
as ever, ''the farmer feedeth all." And necessarily, 
the condition of labor in these first and widest of occu- 
pations determines the general condition of labor, just 
as the level of the ocean determines the level of all its 
arms and bays and seas. Where there is a great de- 
mand for labor in agriculture, and wages are high, 
there must soon be a great demand for labor, and high 
wages, in all occupations. Where it is difficult to get 
employment in agriculture, and wages are low, there 
must soon be a difficulty of obtaining employment, and 
low wages, in all occupations. Now, what determines 
the demand for labor and the rate of wages in agricult- 
ure is manifestly the ability of labor to employ itself — 
that is to say, the ease with wliich land can be obtained. 
This is the reason that in new countries, where land is 
easily had, wages, not merely in agriculture, but in all 
occupations, are higher than in older countries, where 
land is hard to get. And thus it is that, as the value 
of land increases, wages fall, and the difficulty in find- 
ing employment arises. 

This whoever will may see by merely looking around 
him. Clearly the difficulty of finding employment, the 
fact that in all vocations, as a rule, the supply of labor 



I50 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

seems to exceed the demand for labor, springs from 
difficulties that prevent labor finding employment for 
itself — from the barriers that fence labor off from land. 
That there is a surplus of labor in any one occupation 
arises from the difficulty of finding employment in 
other occupations, but for which the surplus would be 
immediately drained off. When there was a great de- 
mand for clerks no book-keeper could suffer for want 
of employment. And so on, down to the fundamental 
employments which directly extract wealth from land, 
the opening in which of opportunities for labor to em- 
ploy itself would soon drain off any surplus in deriva- 
tive occupations. Not that every unemployed me- 
chanic, or operative, or clerk, could or would get him- 
self a farm ; but that from all the various occupations 
enough would betake themselves to the land to relieve 
any pressure for employment. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE EFFECTS OF MACHINERY. 

How ignorance, neglect or contempt of human rights 
may turn public benefits into public misfortunes we 
may clearly see if we trace the effect of labor-saving 
inventions. 

It is not altogether from a blind dislike of innova- 
tion that even the more thoughtful and intelligent 
Chinese set their faces against the introduction into 
their dense- population of the labor-saving machinery 
of Western civilization. They recognize the superi- 
ority wliich in many things invention has given us, 
but to< their view this superiority must ultimately be 



THE EFFECTS OF MACHINERY. 151 

paid for with too high a price. The Eastern mind, in 
fact, regards the greater powers grasped by Western 
civilization somewhat as the mediaeval European mind 
regarded the powers which it believed might be gained 
by the Black Art, but for which the user must finally 
pay in destruction of body and damnation of soul. 
And there is much in the present aspects and tenden- 
cies of our civilization to confirm the Chinese in this 
view. 

It is clear that the inventions and discoveries which 
during this century have so enormously increased the 
power of producing wealtli have not proved an un- 
mixed good. Their benefits are not merely unequally 
distributed, but they are bringing about absolutely 
injurious effects. They are concentrating capital, and 
increasing the power of these concentrations to mo- 
nopolize and oppress ; are rendering the workman 
more dependent ; depriving him of the advantages of 
skill and of opportunities to acquire it ; lessening his 
control over his own condition and his hope of improv- 
ing it ; cramping his mind, and in many cases distort- 
ing and enervating his body. 

It seems to me impossible to consider the present 
tendencies of our industrial development without feel- 
ing that if there be no escape from them, the Chinese 
philosophers are right, and that the powers we have 
called into our service must ultimately destroy us. 
We are reducing the cost of production ; but in doing 
so, are stunting children, and unfitting women for the 
duties of maternity, and degrading men into the posi- 
tion of mere feeders of machines. We are not lessen- 
ing the fierceness of the struggle for existence. Though 
we work with an intensity and application that with the 
great majority of us leaves time and power for little 



152 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

else, we have increased, not decreased, the anxieties of 
life. Insanit)'' is increasing, suicide is increasing, the 
disposition to shun marriage is increasing. We are 
developing, on the one side, enormous fortunes, but on 
the other side, utter pariahs. These are symptoms of 
disease for which no gains can compensate. 

Yet it is manifestly wrong to attribute either neces- 
sary good or necessary evil to the improvements and 
inventions which are so changing industrial and social 
relations. They simply increase power — and power 
may work either good or evil as intelligence controls 
or fails to control it. 

Let us consider the effects of the introduction of 
labor-saving machinery — or rather, of all discoveries, 
inventions, and improvements that increase the prod- 
uce a given amount of labor can obtain. 

In that primitive state in which the labor of each 
family supplies its wants, any invention or discovery 
which increases the power of supplying one of these 
wants will increase the power of supplying all, since 
the labor saved in one direction may be expended in 
other directions. 

When division of labor has taken place, and differ- 
ent parts in production are taken by different individ- 
uals, the gain obtained by any labor-saving improve- 
ment in one branch of production will, in like manner, 
be averaged with all. If, for instance, improvements 
be made in the weaving of cloth and the working of 
iron, the effect will be that a bushel of grain will ex- 
change for more cloth and more iron, and thus the 
farmer will be enabled to obtain the same quantity of 
all the things he wants with less labor, or a somewhat 
greater quantity with the same labor. And so with all 
other producers. 



THE EFFECTS OF MACHINERY. 153 

Even when the improvement is kept a secret, or the 
inventor is protected for a time by a patent, it is only 
in part that the benefit can be retained. It is the gen- 
eral characteristic of labor-saving improvements, after 
at least a certain stage in the arts is reached, that the 
production of larger quantities is necessary to secure 
the economy. And those who have the monopoly are 
impelled by their desire for the largest profit to pro- 
duce more at a lower price, rather than to produce the 
same quantity at the previous price, thus enabling the 
producers of other things to obtain for less labor the 
particular things in the production of which the saving 
has been effected, and thus diffusing part of the benefit, 
and generally the largest part, over the whole field of 
industry. 

In this way all labor-saving inventions tend to in- 
crease the productive power of all labor, and, except 
in so far as they are monopolized, their whole benefit 
is thus diffused. For, if in one occupation labor be- 
come more profitable than in others, labor is drawn 
to it until the net average in different occupations is 
restored. And so, where not artificially prevented, 
does the same tendency bring to a common level the 
earnings of capital. The direct effect of improvements 
and inventions which add to productive power is, it is 
to be remarked, always to increase the earnings of la- 
bor, never to increase the earnings of capital. The 
advantage, even in such improvements as may seem 
primarily to be rather capital-saving than labor-saving 
— as, for instance, an invention which lessens the time 
required for the tanning of hides — becomes a property 
and advantage of labor. The reason is, not to go into 
a more elaborate explanation, that labor is the active 
factor in production. Capital is merely its tool and 



154 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

instrument. The great gains made by particular cap- 
italists in the utilization of improvements are not the 
gains of capital, but generally the gains of monopoly, 
though sometimes they may be gains of adventure or 
of management. The rate of interest, which is the 
measure of the earnings of capital, has not increased 
with all the enormous labor-saving improvements of 
our century ; on the contrary, its tendency has been to 
diminish. But the requirement of larger amounts of 
capital, which is generally characteristic of labor-sav- 
ing improvements, may increase the facility with which 
those who have large capitals can establish monopolies 
that enable them to intercept what would naturally go 
to labor. This, however, is an effect, rather than a 
cause, of the failure of labor to get the benefit of im- 
provements in production. 

For the cause we must go further. While labor- 
saving improvements increase the power of labor, no 
improvement or invention can release labor from its 
dependence upon land. Labor-saving improvements 
only increase the power of producing wealth from 
land. And land being monopolized as the private 
property of certain persons, who can thus prevent 
others from using it, all these gains, which accrue pri- 
marily to labor, can be demanded from labor by the 
owners of land, in higher rents and higher prices. 
Thus, as we see it, the march of improvement and in- 
vention has increased neither interest nor wages, but 
its general effect has everywhere been to increase the 
value of land. Where increase of wages has been won, 
it has been by combination, or the concurrence of 
special causes ; but Vv^hat of the increased productive- 
ness which primarily attaches to labor has been thus 
secured by labor is comparatively trivial. Some part 



THE EFFECTS OF MACHINERY. 155 

of it has gone to various other monopolies, out the 
great bulk has gone to the monopoly of the soil, has 
increased ground-rents and raised the value of land. 

The railroad, for instance, is a great labor-saving 
invention. It does not increase the quantity of grain 
which the farmer can raise, nor the quantity of goods 
which the manufacturer can turn out ; but by reducing 
the cost of transportation it increases the quantity of 
all the various things which can be obtained :n ex- 
change for produce of either kind ; which practically 
amounts to the same thing. 

These gains primarily accrue to labor ; that is to 
say, the advantage given by the railroad in the district 
which it affects, is to save labor ; to enable the same 
labor to procure more wealth. But as we see where 
railroads are built, it is not labor that secures the gain. 
The railroad being a- monopoly — and in the United 
States a practically unrestricted monopoly — as large a 
portion as possible of these gains, over and above the 
fair returns on the capital invested, is intercepted by 
the managers, who by fictitious costs, watered stock, 
and in various other ways, thinly disguise their levies, 
and who generally rob the stockholders while they 
fleece the public. The rest of the gain — the advantage 
which, after these deductions, accrues to labor, is inter- 
cepted by the monopolists of land. As the productive- 
ness of labor is increased, or even as there is a promise 
of its increase, so does the value of land increase, and 
labor, having to pay proportionately more for land, is 
shorn of all the benefit. Taught by experience, when 
a railroad opens a new district we do not expect wages 
to increase ; what we expect to increase is the value of 
land. 

The elevated railroads of New York are labor-saving 



156 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

machines, which have greatly reduced the time and 
labor necessary to take people from one end of the city 
to the other. They have made accessible to the over- 
crowded population of the lower part of the island, 
the vacant spaces at the upper. But they have not 
added to the earnings of labor, nor made it easier for 
the mere laborer to live. Some portion of the gain has 
been intercepted by Mr. Cyrus Field, Mr. Samuel J. 
Tilden, Mr. Jay Gould, and other managers and manip- 
ulators. Over and above this, the advantage has gone 
to the owners of land. The reduction in the time and 
cost of transportation has made much vacant land ac- 
cessible to an over-crowded population, but as this 
land has been made accessible, so has its value risen, 
and the tenement-house population is as crowded as 
ever. The managers of the roads have gained some 
millions ; the owners of the land affected, some hun- 
dreds of millions ; but the working classes of New York 
are no better off. What they gain in improved trans- 
portation they must pay in increased rent. 

And so would it be with any improvement or ma- 
terial benefaction. Supposing the very rich men of 
New York were to become suddenly imbued with that 
public spirit which shows itself in the Astor Library and 
the Cooper Institute, and that it should become among 
them a passion, leading them even to beggar themselves 
in the emulation to benefit their fellow-citizens. Sup- 
posing such a man as Mr. Gould were to m^ake the ele- 
vated roads free, were to assume the cost of the Fire 
Department, and give every house a free telephone 
connection ; and Mr. Vanderbilt, not to be outdone, 
were to assume the cost of putting down good pave- 
ments, and cleaning the streets, and running the horse 
cars for nothing ; while the Astors were to build libra- 



THE EFFECTS OF MACHINERY. 157 

ries in every ward. Supposing the fifty, twenty, ten, 
and still smaller millionaires, seized by the same pas- 
sion, were singly or together, at their own cost, to 
bring in plentiful supplies of water ; to furnish heat, 
light, and power free of charge ; to improve and main- 
tain the schools ; to open theatres and concerts to the 
public ; to establish public gardens and baths and 
markets ; to open stores where everything could be 
bought at retail for the lowest wholesale price ; — in 
short, were to do everything that could be done to make 
New York a cheap and pleasant place to live in ? The 
result would be that New York being so much more 
desirable a place to live in, more people would desire 
to live in it, and the land owners could charge so much 
the more for the privilege. All these benefactions 
would increase rent. 

And so, whatever be the character of the improve- 
ment, its benefit, land being monopolized, must ulti- 
mately go to the owners of land. Were labor-saving 
invention carried so far that the necessity of labor in 
the production of wealth were done away with, the 
result would be that the owners of land could command 
all the wealth that could be produced, and need not 
share with labor even what is necessary for its main- 
tenance. Were the powers and capacities of land in- 
creased, the gain would be that of landowners. Or 
were the improvements to take place in the powers and 
capacities of labor, it would still be the owners of land, 
not laborers, who would reap the advantage. 

For land being indispensable to labor, those who 
monopolize land are able to make their own terms with 
labor ; or rather, the competition wHth each other of 
those who cannot employ themselves, yet must find 
employment or starve, will force wages down to the 



158 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

lowest point at which the habits of the laboring class 
permit them to live and reproduce. At this point, in 
all countries where land is fully monopolized, the 
wages of common labor must rest, and toward it all 
other wages tend, being only kept up aboA^e it by the 
special conditions, artificial or otherwise, which give 
labor in some occupations higher wages than in others. 
And so no improvement even in the power of labor 
itself — ;^vhether it come from education, from the act- 
ual increase of muscular force, or from the ability to 
do with less sleep and work longer hours — could raise 
the reward of labor above this point. This we see in 
countries and in occupations where the labor of women 
and children is called in to aid the natural bread-winner 
in the support of the family. While as for any in- 
crease in economy and thrift, as soon as it became gen- 
eral it could only lessen, not increase, the reward of 
labor. 

This is the ''iron law of wages," as it is styled by 
the Germans — the law which determines wages to the 
minimum on which laborers will consent to live and 
reproduce. It is recognized by all economists, though 
by most of them attributed to other causes than the 
true one. It is manifestly an inevitable result of mak- 
ing the land from which all must live the exclusive 
property of some. The lord of the soil is necessarily 
lord of the men who live upon it. They are as truly 
and as fully his slaves as though his ownership in their 
flesh and blood were acknowledged. Their competition 
with each other to obtain from him the means of liveli- 
hood must compel them to give up to him all their 
earnings save the necessary wages of slavery — to wit, 
enough to keep them in working condition and main- 
tain their numbers. And as no possible increase in 



SLA VER V AND SLA VER Y. 159 

the power of his labor, or reduction in his expenses of 
living, can benefit the slave, neither can it, where land 
is monopolized, benefit those who have nothing but 
their labor. It can only increase the value of land — 
the proportion of the produce that goes to the land- 
owner. And this being the case, the greater employ- 
ment of machinery, the greater division of labor, the 
greater contrasts in the distribution of wealth, become 
to the working masses positive evils — making their lot 
harder and more hopeless as material progress goes 
on. Even education adds but to the capacity for suf- 
fering. If the slave must continue to be a slave, it is 
cruelty to educate him. 

All this we may not yet fully realize, because the in- 
dustrial revolution which began with the introduction 
of steam is as yet in its first stages, while up to this 
time the overrunning of a new continent has reduced 
social pressure, not merely here, but even in Europe. 
But the new continent is rapidly being fenced in, and 
the industrial revolution goes on faster and faster. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SLAVERY AND SLAVERY. 

I MUST leave it to the reader to carry on in other 
directions, if he choose, such inquiries as those to which 
the last three chapters have been devoted.^ The more 
carefully he examines, the more fully will he see that 
at the root of every social problem lies a social wrong, 

* They are pursued in more regular and scientific form in my ' ' Prog- 
ress and Poverty," a book to which I must refer the reader for a more 
elaborate discussion of economic questions. 



i6o SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

that " ignorance, neglect or contempt of human rights 
are the causes of public misfortunes and corruptions of 
government." Yet, in truth, no elaborate examination 
is necessary. To understand why material progress 
does not benefit the masses requires but a recognition 
of the self-evident truth that man cannot live without 
land ; that it is only on land and from land that human 
labor can produce. 

Robinson Crusoe, as we all know, took Friday as his 
slave. Suppose, however, that instead of taking Friday 
as his slave, Robinson Crusoe had welcomed him as a 
man and a brother ; had read him a Declaration of In- 
dependence, an Emancipation Proclamation and a 
Fifteenth Amendment, and informed him that he w^as 
a free and independent citizen, entitled to vote and 
hold office ; but had at the same time also in- 
formed him that that particular island was his (Robin- 
son Crusoe's) private and exclusive property. What 
would have been the difference ? Since Friday could 
not fly up into the air nor swim off through the sea, 
since if he lived at all he must live on the island, he 
would have been in one case as much a slave as in the 
other. Crusoe's ownership of the island would be 
equivalent to his ownership of Friday. 

Chattel slavery is, in fact, merely the rude and prim- 
itive mode of property in man. It only grows up 
where population is sparse ; it never, save by virtue of 
special circumstances, continues where the pressure of 
population gives land a high value, for in that case 
the owmership of land gives all the power that comes 
from the ownership of men in more convenient form. 
When in the course of history w^e see the conquerors 
making chattel slaves of the conquered, it is always 
where population is sparse and land of little value, or 



SLAVERY AND SLAVERY. i6i 

where they want to carry off their human spoil. In 
other cases, the conquerors merely appropriate the 
lands of the conquered, by which means they just as 
effectually, and much more conveniently, compel the 
conquered to work for them. It was not until the 
great estates of the rich patricians began to depopulate 
Italy that the importation of slaves began. In Turkey 
and Egypt, where chattel slavery is yet legal, it is con- 
fined to the inmates and attendants of harem.s. Eng- 
lish ships carried negro slaves to America, and not to 
England or Ireland, because in America land was cheap 
and labor was valuable, while in western Europe land 
was valuable and labor was cheap. As soon as the 
possibility of expansion over new land ceased, chattel 
slavery would have died out in our Southern States. 
As it is, Southern planters do not regret the abolition 
of slavery. They get out of the freedmen as tenants 
as much as they got out of them as slaves. While as 
for prsedial slavery — the attachment of serfs to the soil 
— the form of chattel slavery which existed longest in 
Europe, it is only of use to the proprietor where there 
is little competition for land. Neither prsedial slavery 
nor absolute chattel slavery could have added to the 
Irish landlord's virtual ownership of men — to his 
power to make them work for him without return. 
Their own competition for the means of livelihood in- 
sured him all they possibly could give. To the Eng- 
lish proprietor the ownership of slaves would, be onlv 
a burden and a loss, when he can get laborers for less 
than it would cost to maintain tiiem as slaves, a,nd 
when they are become ill or infirm can turn them on 
the parish. Or what would the New England manu- 
facturer gain by the enslavement of his operatives ? 
The competition with each other of so-called freemen, 
II 



i62 SOCIAL PROBLEMS, 

who are denied all right to the soil of what is called 
their country, brings him labor cheaper and more con- 
veniently than would chattel slavery. 

That a people can be enslaved just as effectually by 
making property of their lands as by making property 
of their bodies, is a truth that conquerors in all ages 
have recognized, and that, as society developed, the 
strong and unscrupulous who desired to live off the la- 
bor of others have been prompt to see. The coarser 
form of slavery, in which each particular slave is the 
property of a particular owner, is only fitted for a rude 
state of society, and with social development entails 
more and more care, trouble, and expense upon the 
owner. But by making property of the land instead of 
the person, much care, supervision, and expense are 
saved the proprietors ; and though no particular slave 
is owned by a particular master, yet the one class still 
appropriates the labor of the other class as before. 

That each particular slave should be owned by a par- 
ticular master would in fact become, as social develop- 
ment went on, and industrial organization greW complex, 
a manifest disadvantage to the masters. They would 
be at the trouble of whipping, or otherwise compelling 
the slaves to work ; at the cost of watching them, and 
of keeping them when ill or unproductive ; at the 
trouble of finding work for them to do, or of hiring 
them out, as at different seasons or at different times the 
number of slaves which different owners or different 
contractors could advantageously employ would vary. 
As social development went on, these inconveniences 
might, were there no other way of obviating them, have 
led slave-owners to adopt some such device for the joint 
ownership and management of slaves, as the mutual 
convenience of capitalists has led to in the manage- 



SLAVERY AND SLAVERY. 163 

ment of capital. In a rude state of society, the man 
who wants to have money ready for use must hoard 
it, or, if lie travels, carry it with him. The man wlio 
has capital must use it himself or lend it. But mu- 
tual convenience has, as society developed, suggested 
methods of saving this trouble. The man who wishes 
to have his money accessible turns it over to a bank, 
which does not agree to keep or hand him back that 
particular money, but money to that amount. And so 
by turning over his capital to savings banks or trust 
companies, or by buying the stock or bonds of corpo- 
rations, he gets rid of all trouble of handling and em- 
ploying it. Had chattel slavery continued, some simi- 
lar device for the ownership and management of slaves 
would in time have been adopted. But by changing 
the form of slavery — by freeing men and appropriating 
land — all the advantages of chattel slavery can be se- 
cured without any of the disadvantages which in a com- 
plex society attend the owning of a particular man by 
a particular master. 

Unable to employ themselves, the nominally free 
laborers are forced by their competition with each 
other to pay as rent all their earnings above a bare liv- 
ing, or to sell their labor forwages which give but a bare 
living, and as landowners the ex-slaveholders are en- 
abled as before to appropriate to themselves the labor 
or the produce of the labor of their former chattels, hav- 
ing in the value which this power of appropriating the 
proceeds of labor gives to the ownership of land, a cap- 
italized value equivalent, or more than equivalent, to the 
value of their slaves. They no longer have to drive 
their slaves to work ; want and the fear of want do 
that more effectually than the lash. They no longer 
have the trouble of looking out for their employment 



i64 SOCIAL PROBLEMS, 

or hiring out their labor, or the expense of keeping 
them when they cannot work. That is thrown upon the 
slaves. The tribute that they still wring from labor 
seems like voluntary payment. In fact, they take it as 
their honest share of the rewards of production — since 
they furnish the land ! And they find so-called political 
economists, to say nothing of so-called preachers of 
Christianity, to tell them it is so. 

We of the United States take credit for having abol- 
ished slavery. Passing the question of how much credit 
the majority of us are entitled to for the abolition of 
negro slavery, it remains true that we have only abol- 
ished one form of slavery — and that a primitive form 
which had been abolished in the greater portion of the 
country by social development, and that, notwifhstand- 
ing its race character gave it peculiar tenacity, would in 
time have been abolished in the same way in other parts 
of the country. We have not really abolished slavery ; 
we have retained it in its most insidious and widespread 
form — in a form which applies to whites as to blacks. 
So far from having abolished slavery, it is extending 
and intensifying, and we make no scruple of selling into 
it our own children — the citizens of the republic yet to 
be. For what else are we doing in selling the land on 
which future citizens must live, if they are to live at all ? 

The essence of slavery is the robbery of labor. It 
consists in compelling men to work, yet taking from 
them all the produce of their labor except what suffices 
for a bare living. Of how many of our " free and equal 
American citizens " is that already the lot ? And of how 
many more is it coming to be the lot ? 

In all our cities there are, even in good times, thou- 
sands and thousands of men who would gladly go to 
work for wages that would give them merely board and 



SLAVERY AND SLAVERY. 165 

clothes — that is to say, who would gladly accept the 
wages of slaves. As I have previously stated, the Mas- 
sachusetts Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Illinois 
Bureau of Labor Statistics both declare that in the ma- 
jority of cases the earnings of wage-workers will not 
maintain their families, and must be pieced out by the 
earninsfs of women and children. In our richest States 
are to be found men reduced to a virtual peonage — liv- 
ing m. their employers' houses, trading at their stores, 
and for the most part unable to get out of their debt 
from one year's end to the other. In New York, shirts 
are made for 35 cents a dozen, and women working 
from fourteen to sixteen hours a day average three 
dollars or four dollars a week. There are cities where 
the prices of such work are lower still. As a matter 
of dollars and cents, no master could afford to work 
slaves so hard and keep them so cheaply. 

But it may be said that the analogy between our in- 
dustrial system and chattel slavery is only supported 
by the consideration of extremes. Between those who 
get but a bare living and those who can live luxu- 
riously on the earnings of others, are many gradations, 
and here lies the great middle class. Between all 
classes, moreover, a constant movement of individuals 
is going on. The millionaire's grandchildren may be 
tramps, while even the poor man who has lost hope 
for himself may cherish it for his son. Moreover 
it is not true that all the difference between what labor 
fairly earns and what labor really gets goes to the 
owners of land. And with us, in the United States, a 
great many of the owners of land are small owners — 
men who own the homesteads in which they live or the 
soil which they till, and who combine the characters of 
laborer and landowner. 



i66 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

These objections will be best met by endeavoring to 
imagine a well-developed society, like our own, in 
which chattel slavery exists without distinction of race. 
To do this requires some imagination, for we know of 
no such case. Chattel slavery had died out in Europe 
before modern civilization began, and in the New 
World has existed only as race slavery, and in com- 
munities of low industrial development. 

But if we do imagine slavery without race distinc- 
tion in a progressive community, we shall see that 
society, even if starting from a point where the greater 
part of the people were made the chattel slaves of the 
rest, could not long consist of but the two classes, 
masters and slaves. The indolence, interest, and neces- 
sity of the masters would soon develop a class of in- 
termediaries between the completely enslaved and 
themselves. To supervise the labor of the slaves, and 
to keep them in subjection, it would be necessary to 
to take, from the ranks of the slaves, overseers, police- 
men, etc., and to reward them by more of the produce 
of slave labor than goes to the ordinary slave. So, too, 
would it be necessary to draw out special skill and 
talent. And in the course of social development a 
class of traders would necessarily arise, who, exchang- 
ing the products of slave labor, would retain a consid- 
erable portion ; and a class of contractors, who, hiring 
slave labor from the masters, would also retain a por- 
tion of its produce. Thus, between the slaves forced 
to work for a bare living and the masters who lived 
without work, intermediaries of various grades would 
be developed, some of whom would doubtless acquire 
large wealth. 

And in the mutations of fortunes, some slaveholders 
would be constantly falling into the class of interme- 



SLAVERY AND SLAVERY. 167 

diaries, and finally into the class of slaves, while indi- 
vidual slaves would be rising. The conscience, benev- 
olence or gratitude of masters would lead them occa- 
sionally to manumit slaves ; their interest would lead 
them to reward the diUgence, inventiveness, fidelity to 
themselves, or treachery to their fellows, of particular 
slaves. Thus, as has often occurred in slave countries, 
we would find slaves who were free to make what they 
could on condition of paying so much to their masters 
every month or every quarter ; slaves who had partially 
bought their freedom, for a day or two days or three 
days in a week, or for certain months in the year, and 
those who had completely bought themselves, or had 
been presented with their freedom. And, as has always 
happened where slavery had not race character, some 
of these ex-slaves or their children would, in the con- 
stant movement, be always working their way to the 
highest places, so that in such a state of society the 
apologists of things as they are would triumphantly 
point to these examples, saying, '' See how beautiful a 
thing is slavery ! Any slave can become a slaveholder 
himself if he is only faithful, industrious and prudent ! 
It is only their own ignorance and dissipation and la- 
ziness that prevent all slaves from becoming masters ! " 
And then they would indulge in a moan for human 
nature. " Alas ! " they would say, " the fault is not in 
slavery ; it is in human nature " — meaning, of course, 
other human nature than their own. And if any one 
hinted at the abolition of slavery, they would charge 
him with assailing the sacred rights of property, and 
of endeavoring to rob poor blind widow women of tlie 
slaves that were their sole dependence ; call him a 
crank and a communist ; an enemy of man and a de- 
fier of God ! 



i68 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

Consider, furthermore, the opei'^tion of taxation in 
an advanced society based on chattel slavery ; the 
effect of the establishment of monopolies, of manufact- 
ure, trade and transportation ; of the creation of pub- 
lic debts, etc., and you will see that in reality the social 
phenomena would be essentially the sam.e if men were 
made property as they are under the system that makes 
land property. 

It must be remembered, however, that the slavery 
that results from the appropriation of land does not 
come suddenly, but insidiously and progressively. 
Where population is sparse and land of little value, 
the institution of private property in land may exist 
without its effects being much felt. As it becomes 
more and more difficult to get land, so will the virtual 
enslavement of the laboring classes go on. As the 
value of land rises, more and more of the earnings of 
labor will be demanded for the use of land, until finally 
nothing is left to laborers but the wages of slavery — 
a bare living. 

But the degree as well as the manner in which in- 
dividuals are affected by this movement must vary very 
much. When the ownership of land has been much 
diffused, there will remain, for some time after the 
mere laborer has been reduced to the wasfes of slaverv, 
a greater body of smaller landowners occupying an 
intermediate position, and who, according to the land 
they hold, and the relation which it bears to their la- 
bor, may, to make a comparison with chattel slavery, 
be compared, in their gradations, to the owners of a 
few slaves ; to those who own no slaves but are them- 
selves free ; or to partial slaves, compelled to render 
service for one, two, three, four or five days in the 
week, but for the rest of the time their own masters. 



SLAVERY AND SLAVERY. ' 169 

As land becomes more and more valuable this class will 
gradually pass into the ranks of the completely en- 
slaved. The independent American farmer working 
with his own hands on his own land is doomed as cer- 
tainly as two thousand years ago his prototype of Italy 
was doomed. He must disappear, with the develop- 
ment of the private ownership of land, as the English 
yeoman has already disappeared. 

We have abolished negro slavery in the United 
States, But how small is the real benefit to the slave. 
George M. Jackson writes me from St. Louis, under 
date of August 15, 1883 : 

During the war I served in a Kentucky regiment in the Federal 
army. When the war broke out, my father owned sixty slaves. I had 
not been back to my old Kentucky home for years until a short time 
ago, when I was met by one of my father's old negroes, who said to 
me : " Mas' George, you say you sot us free ; but 'fore God, I'm wus 
off than when I belonged to your father." The planters, on the other 
hand, are contented with the change. They say: "How foolish it 
was in us to go to war for slavery. We get labor cheaper now than 
when we owned the slaves." How do they get it cheaper? Why, 
in the shape of rents they take more of the labor of the negro than they 
could under slavery, for then they were compelled to return him sufii- 
cient food, clothing, and medical attendance to keep him well, and 
were compelled by conscience and public opinion, as well as by law, 
to keep him when he could no longer work. Now their interest and 
responsibility cease when they have got all the work out of hirn they 



In one of his novels, Capt. Marryat tells of a school- 
master who announced that he had abandoned the use 
of the rod. When tender mothers, tempted by this 
announcement, brought their boys to his institution, 
he was eloquent in his denunciations of the barbarism 
of the rod ; but no sooner had the doors closed upon 
them than the luckless pupils found that the master 



I70 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

had only abandoned the use of the rod for the use of 
the cane ! Very much like this is our abolition of 
negro slavery. 

The only one of our prominent men who had any 
glimmering of what was really necessary to the abo- 
lition of slavery was Thaddeus Stephens, but it was 
only a glimmering. "" Forty acres and a mule " would 
have been a measure of scant justice to the freed- 
men, and it would for a Avhile have given them some- 
thing of that personal independence which is necessary 
to freedom. Yet only for a while. In the course of 
time, and as the pressure of population increased, the 
forty acres would, with the majority of them, have been 
mortgaged and the mule sold, and they would soon have 
been, as now, competitors for a foothold upon the 
earth and for the means of making a living from it. 
Such a measure would have given the freedmen a fairer 
start, and for many of them would have postponed 
the evil day; but that is all. Land being private 
property, that evil day 7nusi come. 

I do not deny that the blacks of tlie South have in 
some things gained by the abolition of chattel slavery. 
I will not even insist that, on the whole, their material 
condition has not been improved. But it must be re- 
membered that the South is yet but sparsely settled, 
and is behindhand in industrial development. The 
continued existence of slavery there was partly the 
effect and partly the cause of this. As population in- 
creases, as industry is developed, the condition of the 
freedmen must become harder and harder. As yet, 
land is comparatively cheap in the South, and there is 
much not only unused but unclaimed. The conse- 
quence is, that the freedmen are not yet driven into 
that fierce competition which must come with denser 



SLAVERY AND SLAVERY. 171 

population ; there is no seeming surplus of labor 
seeking employment on any terms, as in the North. 
The freedmen merely get a living, as in the days of 
slavery, and in many cases not so good a living ; but 
still there is little or no difficulty in getting that. To 
fairly compare the new estate of the freedmen with 
the old, we must wait until in population and indus- 
trial development the South begins to approach the 
condition of the North. 

But not even in the North (nor, for that matter, even 
in Europe) has that form of slavery which necessarily 
results from the disinheritance of labor by the monop- 
olization of land, yet reached its culmination. For the 
vast area of unoccupied land on this continent has pre- 
vented the full effects of modern development from 
being anywhere felt. As it becomes more and more 
difficult to obtain land, so will the virtual enslavement 
of the laboring classes go on. As the value of land 
rises, more and more of the earnings of labor will b^ 
demanded for the use of land — that is to say, laborers 
must give a greater and greater portion of their time 
up to the service of the landlord, until, finally, no mat- 
ter how hard they work, nothing is left them but a bare 
living. 

Of the two systems of slavery, I think there can be 
no doubt that upon the same moral level, that which 
makes property of persons is more human than that 
which results from making private property of land. 
The cruelties which are perpetrated under the system 
of chattel slavery are more striking and arouse more 
indignation because they are the conscious acts of in- 
dividuals. But for the suffering of the poor under the 
more refined system no one in particular seems re- 
sponsible. That one human being should be deliber- 



172 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

ately burned by other human beings excites our 
imagination and arouses our indignation much more 
than the great fire or railroad accident jn which a hun- 
dred people are roasted alive. But this very fact per- 
mits cruelties that would not be tolerated under the 
one system to pass almost unnoticed under the other. 
Human beings are overworked, are starved, are robbed 
of all the light and sweetness of life, are condemned to 
ignorance and brutishness, and to the infection of physi- 
cal and moral disease ; are driven to crime and suicide, 
not by other individuals, but by iron necessities for 
which it seems that no one in particular is responsible. 

To match from the annals of chattel slavery the 
horrors that day after day transpire unnoticed in the 
heart of Christian civilization, it would be necessary 
to go back to ancient slavery, to the chronicles of 
Spanish conquest in the New World, or to stories of 
the Middle Passage. 

That chattel slavery is not the worst form of slavery 
we know from the fact that in countries where it has 
prevailed irrespective of race distinctions, the ranks of 
chattel slaves have been recruited from the ranks of 
the free poor, who, driven by distress, have sold them- 
selves or their children. And I think no one who reads 
our daily papers can doubt that even already, in the 
United States, there are many who, did chattel slavery 
without race distinction exist among us, would gladly 
sell themselves or their children, and who would really 
make a good exchange for their nominal freedom in 
doing so. 

We have not abolished slavery. We never can abolish 
slavery, until we honestly accept the fundamental truth 
asserted by the Declaration of Independence and secure 
to all the equal and unalienable rights with which they 



PUBLIC DEBTS AND INDIRECT TAXATION. 173 

are endowed by their Creator. If we cannot or will 
not do that, then, as a matter of humanity and social 
stability, it might be w^eil, would it avail, to consider 
whether it were not wise to amend our constitution and 
permit poor whites and blacks alike to sell themselves 
and their children to good masters. If we must have 
slavery, it were better in the form in which the slave 
knows his owner, and the heart and conscience and 
pride of that owner can be appealed to. Better breed 
children for the slaves of good. Christian, civilized peo- 
ple tlian breed them for the brothel or the penitentiary. 
But alas ! that recourse is denied. Supposing we did 
legalize chattel slavery again, who would buy men 
when men can be hired so cheaply ? 



CHAPTER XVI. 

PUBLIC DEBTS AND INDIRECT TAXATION. 

The more we examine, the more clearly may we see 
that public misfortunes and corruptions of govern- 
ment do spring from neglect or contempt of the natural 
rights of man. 

That, in spite of the progress of civilization, Europe 
is to-day a vast camp, and the energies of the most ad- 
vanced portion of mankind are everywhere taxed so 
heavily to pay for preparations for w^ar or the costs of 
war, is due to two great inventions, that of indirect 
taxation and that of public debt. 

Both of these devices by which tyrannies are main- 
tained, governments are corrupted, and the common 
.people plundered, spring historically from the monopo- 
lization of land, and both directly ignore the natural 



174 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

rights of man. Under the feudal system the greater 
part of public expenses were defrayed from the rent of 
land, and the landholders had to do the fighting or 
bear its cost. Had this system been continued, Eng- 
land, for instance, would to-day have had no public 
debt. And it is safe to say that her people and the 
world would have been saved those unnecessary and 
cruel wars in which in modern times English blood 
and treasure has been wasted. But by the institution 
of indirect taxes and public debts the great landholders 
were enabled to throw off on the people at large the 
burdens which constituted the condition on which they 
held their lands, and to throw them off in such a way 
that those on whom they rested, though they might 
feel the pressure, could not tell from whence it came. 
Thus it was that the holding of land was insidiously 
changed from a trust into an individual possession, and 
the masses stripped of the first and most important of 
the rights of man. 

The institution of public debts, like the institution 
of private property in land, rests upon the preposterous 
assumption that one generation may bind another gen- 
eration. If a man were to come to me and say, " Here 
is a promissory note which your great-grandfather gave 
to my great-grandfather, and which you will oblige me 
by paying," I would laugh at him, and tell him that if 
he wanted to collect his note he had better hunt up 
the man who made it ; that I had nothing to do with 
my great-grandfather's promises. And if he were to 
insist upon payment, and to call my attention to the 
terms of the bond in which my great-grandfather ex- 
pressly stipulated with his great-grandfather that I 
should pay him, I would only laugh the more, and be 
the more certain that he was a lunatic. To such a de- 



PUBLIC DEBTS AND INDIRECT TAXATION. 175 

mand any one of us would reply in effect, " My great- 
grandfather was evidently a knave or a joker, and your 
great-grandfather was certainly a fool, which quality 
you surely have inherited if you expect me to pay you 
money because my great-grandfather promised that 1 
should do so. He might as well have given your great- 
grandfather a draft upon Adam or a check upon the 
First National Bank of the Moon." 

Yet upon this assumption that ascendants may bind 
descendants, that one generation may legislate for an- 
other generation, rests the assumed validity of our land 
titles and public debts. 

If it were possible for the present to borrow of the 
future, for those now living to draw upon wealth to be 
created by those who are yet to come, there could be 
no more dangerous power, none more certain to be 
abused ; and none that would involve in its exercise a 
more flagrant contempt for the natural and unalienable 
rights of man. But we have no such power, and there 
is no possible invention by which we can obtain it. 
When we talk about calling upon future generations 
to bear their part in the costs and burdens of the pres- 
ent, about imposing upon them a share in expenditures 
we take the liberty of assuming they will consider to 
have been made for their benefit as well as for ours, we 
are carrying metaphor into absurdity. Public debts 
are not devices for borrowing from the future, for com- 
pelling those yet to be to bear a share in expenses which 
a present generation may choose to incur. That is, of 
course, a physical impossibility. They are merely de- 
vices for obtaining control of wealth in the present 
by promising that a certain distribution of wealth in 
the future shall be made — devices by which the own- 
ers of existing wealth are induced to give it up under 



176 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

promise, not merely that other people shall be taxed 
to pay them, but that other people's children shall be 
taxed for the benefit of their children or the children 
of their assigns. Those who get control of governments 
are thus enabled to obtain sums which they could not 
get by immediate taxation without arousing the indig- 
nation and resistance of those who could make the most 
effective resistance. Thus tyrants are enabled to main- 
tain themselves, and extravagance and corruption are 
fostered. If any cases can be pointed to in w^hich the 
power to incur public debts has been in any wa}^ a bene- 
fit, they are as nothing compared with the cases in which 
the effects have been purely injurious. 

The public debts for which most can be said are those 
contracted for the purpose of making public improve- 
ments, yet w4iat extravagance and corruption the power 
of contracting such debts has engendered in the United 
States is too well known to require illustration, and has 
led, in a number of the States, to constitutional restric- 
tions. Even the quasi public debts of railroad and other 
such corporations have similarly led to extravagance 
and corruption that have far outweighed any good re- 
sults accomplished through them. While, as for the 
great national debts of the world, incurred as they have 
been for purposes of tyranny and war, it is impossible 
to see in them anything but evil. Of all these great 
national debts that of the United States will best bear 
examination ; but it is no exception. 

As I have before said, the wealth expended in carry- 
ing on the war did not come from abroad or from the 
future, but from the existing wealth in the States un- 
der the national flag, and if, when we called on men 
to die for their country, we had not shrunk from tak- 
ing, if necessary, nine hundred and ninety-nine thou- 



PUBLIC DEBTS AND lADIRECT TAXATION. 177 

sand dollars from every millionaire, we need not have 
created any debt. But instead of that, what taxation 
we did impose was so levied as to fall on the poor more 
heavily than on the rich, and to incidentally establish 
monopolies by which the rich could profit at the expense 
of the poor. And then, when more wealth still was 
needed, instead of taking it from those who had it, we 
told the rich that if they would voluntarily let the 
nation use some of their wealth we would make it 
profitable to them by guaranteeing the use of the tax- 
ing power to pay them back, principal and interest. 
And we did make it profitable with a vengeance. Not 
only did we, by the institution of the National Bank- 
ing system, give them back nine-tenths of much of the 
money thus borrowed while continuing to pay interest 
on the whole amount, but even where it was required 
neither by the letter of the bond nor the equity of the 
circumstances we made debt incurred in depreciated 
greenbacks payable on its face in gold. The conse- 
quence of this method of carrying on the war was to 
make the rich richer instead of poorer. The era of 
monstrous fortunes in the United States dates from 
the war. 

But if this can be said of the debt of the United 
States, what shall be said of other national debts ! 

In paying interest upon their enormous national 
debt what is it that the people of England are pay- 
ing? They are paying interest upon sums thrown or 
given away by profligate tyrants, and corrupt oligar- 
chies in generations past — upon grants made to cour- 
tesans, and panders, and sycophants, and traitors to 
the liberties of their country ; upon sums borrowed to 
corrupt their own legislatures and wage wars both 
against their own libert-ies and the liberties of other 
12 



178 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

peoples. For the Hessians hired and the Indians 
armed and the fleets and armies sent to crush the 
American colonies into submission, with the effect of 
splitting into two what might but for that have per- 
haps yet been one great confederated nation ; for the 
cost of treading down the Irish people and inflicting 
wounds that yet rankle ; for the enormous sums spent 
in the endeavor to maintain on the continent of Europe 
the blasphemy of divine right ; for expenditures made 
to carry rapine among unoffending peoples in the four 
quarters of the globe, Englishmen of to-day are taxed. 
It is not the case of asking a man to pay a debt con- 
tracted by his great-grandfather ; it is asking him to 
pay for the rope with which his great-grandfather was 
hanged or the faggots with which he was burned. 

The so-called Egyptian debt which the power of 
England has recently been used to enforce is a still 
more flagrant instance of spoliation. The late Khe- 
dive was no more than an Arab robber, living at free 
quarters in the country and plundering its people. 
All he could get by stripping them to starvation and 
nakedness not satisfying his insensate and barbarian 
profligacy, European money-lenders, relying upon the 
assumed sanctity of national debts, offered him money 
on the most usurious terms. The money was spent 
with the wildest recklessness, upon harems, palaces, 
yachts, diamonds, presents, and entertainments ; yet to 
extort interest upon it from poverty-stricken fellahs, 
Christian England sends fleets and armies to murder 
and burn, and with her power maintains the tyranny 
and luxury of a khedival puppet at the expense of the 
Egyptian people. 

Thus the device of public debts enables tyrants to 
entrench themselves, and adventurers who seize upon 



PUBLIC DEBTS AND INDIRECT TAXATION. 179 

government to defy the people. It permits the making 
of great and wasteful expenditures, by silencing, and 
even converting into support, the opposition of those 
who would otherwise resist these expenditures with 
most energy and force. But for the ability of rulers 
to contract public debts, nine-tenths of the wars of 
Christendom for the past two centuries could never 
have been waged. The destruction of wealth and the 
shedding of blood, the agony of wives and mothers 
and children thus caused, cannot be computed, but to 
these items must be added the waste and loss and de- 
moralization caused by constant preparation for war. 

Nor do the public misfortunes and corruptions of 
government which arise from the ignorance and con- 
tempt of hum^an rights involved in the recognition of 
public debts, end with the costs of war and warlike 
preparation, and the corruptions which such vast pub- 
lic expenditures foster. The passions aroused by war, 
the national hatreds, the worship of military glory, the 
thirst for victory or revenge, dull public conscience, 
pervert the best social instincts into that low, unrea- 
soning extension of selfishness miscalled patriotism ; 
deaden the love of liberty ; lead men to submit to 
tyranny and usurpation from the savage thirst for cut- 
ting the throats of other people, or the fear of having 
their own throats cut. They so pervert religious per- 
ceptions that professed followers of Christ bless in his 
name the standards of murder and rapine, and thanks 
are given to the Prince of Peace for victories that pile 
the earth with mangled corpses, and make hearth- 
stones desolate ! 

Nor yet does the evil end here. William H. Vander- 
bilt, with his forty millions of registered bonds, declares 
that the national debt ought not to be paid off ; that. 



i8o SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

on the contrary, it ought to be increased, because it 
gives stability to the government, ''every man who 
gets a bond becoming a loyal and loving citizen." * 
Mr. Vanderbilt expresses the universal feeling of his 
kind. It was not loyal and loving citizens with bonds 
in their pockets who rushed to the front in our civil 
war, or who rush to the front in any war, but the pos- 
session of a bond does tend to make a man loyal and 
loving to whoever may grasp the machinery of govern- 
ment, and will continue to cash coupons. A great 
public debt creates a great moneyed interest that wants 
" strong government " and fears change, and thus forms 
a powerful element on which corrupt and tyrannous 
government can always rely as against the people. We 
may see already in the United States the demoraliza- 
tion of this influence ; while in Europe, where it has 
had more striking manifestations, it is the mainstay of 
tyranny, and the strongest obstacle to political reform. 

Thomas Jefferson was right when, as a deduction 
from " the self-evident truth that the land belongs in 
usufruct to the living," he declared that one genera- 
tion should not hold itself bound by the laws or the 
debts of its predecessors, and as this widest-minded of 
American patriots and greatest of American statesmen 
said, measures which would give practical effect to 
this principle will appear the more salutary the more 
they are considered. 

Indirect taxation, the other device by which the peo- 
ple are bled without feeling it, and those w4io could make 
the most effective resistance to extravagance and corrup- 
tion are bribed into acquiescence, is an invention where- 
by taxes are so levied that those who directly pay are en- 

* Interview in New York Times. 



PUBLIC DEBTS AND INDIRECT TAXATION. i8i 

abled to collect them again from others, and generally 
to collect them with a profit, in higher prices. Those 
who directly pay the taxes and, still more important, 
those who desire high prices, are thus interested in the 
imposition and maintenance of taxation, while those 
on whom the burden ultimately falls do not realize it. 
The corrupting effects of indirect taxation are obvi- 
ous wherever it has been resorted to, but nowhere 
more obvious than in the United States. Ever since 
the war the great effort of our national government 
has not been to reduce taxation, but to find excuses 
for maintaining war taxation. The most corrupting 
extravagance in every department of administration 
has thus been fostered, and every endeavor used to in- 
crease expense. We have deliberately substituted a 
costly currency for a cheap currency ; we have delib- 
erately added to the cost of paying off the public debt ; 
we maintain a costly navy for which we have no sort 
of use, and which, in case of war, would be of no sort 
of use to us ; and an army twelve times as large and fif- 
teen times as expensive as we need. We are digging 
silver out of certain holes in the ground in Nevada 
and Colorado and poking it down other holes in the 
ground in Washington, New York, and San Francisco. 
We are spending great sums in useless ''public im- 
provements," and are paying pensions under a lav/ 
which seems framed but to put a premium upon fraud 
and get away with public money. And yet the great 
question before Congress is what to do with the sur- 
plus. Any proposition to reduce taxation arouses the 
most bitter opposition from those who profit or who 
imagine they profit from the imposition of this taxa- 
tion, and a clamorous lobby surrounds Congress, beg- 
ging, bullying, bribing, log-rolling ^^^/;zj-/ the reduction 



i82 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

of taxation, each interest protesting and insisting that 
whatever tax is reduced, its own pet tax mnst be left 
intact. This clamor of special interests for the con- 
tinuance of indirect taxation may give us some idea of 
how much greater are the sums these taxes take from 
the people than those they put in the treasury. But it 
is only a faint idea, for besides what goes to the govern- 
ment and what is intercepted by private interests, there 
is the loss and waste caused by the artificial restric- 
tions and difficulties which this system of indirect tax- 
ation places in the way of production and exchange, 
and which unquestionably amount to far more than 
the other two items. 

The cost of this system that can be measured in 
money is, however, of little moment as compared with 
its effect in corrupting government, in debasing pub- 
lic morals, and befogging the thought of the people. 
The first thing every man is called upon to do when he 
reaches this "land of liberty" is to take a false oath ; 
the next thing he is called upon to do is to bribe a 
Custom House officer. And so on, through every ar- 
tery of the body politic and every fibre of the public 
mind, runs the poisonous virus. Law is brought into 
contempt by the making of actions that are not crimes 
in morals crimes in law ; the unscrupulous are given an 
advantage over the scrupulous ; voters are bought, offi- 
cials are corrupted, the press is debauched ; and the 
persistent advocacy of these selfish interests has so far 
beclouded popular thought that a very large number 
— I am inclined to think a very large majority— of the 
American people actually believe that they are bene- 
fited by being thus taxed ! 

To recount in detail the public misfortunes and cor- 
ruptions of government which arise from this vicious 



THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 183 

system of taxation wou'ld take more space than I can 
here devote to the subject. But what I wish specially 
to point out is, that, like the evils arising from public 
debts, they are in the last analysis due to "ignorance, 
neglect, or contempt of human rights." While every 
citizen may properly be called upon to bear his fair 
share in all proper expenses of government, it is mani- 
festly an infringement of natural rights to use the tax- 
ing power so as to give one citizen an advantage over 
another, to take from some the proceeds of their labor 
in order to swell the profit of others, and to punish as 
crimes actions wdiich in themselves are not injurious. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 

To prevent government from becoming corrupt and 
tyrannous, its organization and methods should be as 
simple as possible, its functions be restricted to those 
necessary to the common welfare, and in all its parts 
it should be kept as close to the people and as directly 
within their control as may be. 

We have ignored these principles in many ways, and 
the result has been corruption and demoralization, 
the loss of control by the people, and the wresting of 
government to the advantage of the few and the spolia- 
tion of the many. The line of reform, on one side at 
least, lies in simplification. 

The first and main purpose of government is admi- 
rably stated in that grand document which we Ameri- 
cans so honor and so ignore — the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. It is to secure to men those equal and 



i84 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

unalienable rights with which the Creator has endowed 
them. I shall hereafter show how the adoption of the 
only means by which, in civilized and progressive so- 
ciety, the first of these unalienable rights — the equal 
right to land — can be secured, will at the same time 
greatly simplify government and do away with cor- 
rupting influences. And beyond this, much simplifica- 
tion is possible, and should be sought wherever it can 
be attained. As political corruption makes it easier to 
resist the demand for reform, whatever may be done to 
purify politics and bring government within the intelli- 
gent supervision and control of the people is not mere- 
ly in itself an end to be sought, but a means to larger 
ends. 

The American Republic has no more need for its bur- 
lesque of a nav}^ than a peaceable giant would have for 
a stuffed club or a tin sword. It is only maintained for 
the sake of the officers and the naval rings. In peace 
it is a source of expense and corruption ; in war it 
would be useless. We are too strong for any foreign 
power to wantonly attack, we ought to be too great to 
wantonly attack others. If war should ever be forced 
upon us, we could safely rely upon science and inven- 
tion, which are already superseding navies faster than 
they can be built. 

So with our army. All we need, if we even now need 
that, is a small force of frontier police, such as is main- 
tained in Australia and Canada. Standing navies and 
standing armies are inimical to the genius of democ- 
racy, and it ought to be our pride, as it is our duty, to 
show the world that a great repirblic can dispense with 
both. And in organization, as in principle, both our 
navy and our army are repugnant to the democratic 
idea. In both we maintain that distinction between 



THE FUNCTIO.VS OF GOVERNMENT. 185 

commissioned officers and common soldiers and sailors 
whicli arose in Europe when the nobility who furnish- 
ed the one were considered a superior race to the serfs 
and peasants who supplied the other. The whole sys- 
tem is an insult to democracy, and ought to be swept 
away. 

Our diplomatic system, too, is servilely copied from 
the usages of kings who plotted with each other against 
the liberties of tlie people, before the ocean steamship 
and the telegraph were invented. It serves no purpose 
save to reward politicians, and occasionally to demoral- 
ize a poet. To abolish it would save expense, corrup- 
tion, and national dignity. 

In legral administration there is a larg-e field for radi- 
cal reform. Here, too, we have servilely copied Eng- 
lish precedents, and have allowed lawyers to make law 
in the interests of their class until justice is a costly 
gamble for w^hich a poor man cannot afford to sue. 
The best use that could be made of our great law li- 
braries, to which the reports of thirty-eight States, of the 
Federal courts, and of the English, Scotch and Irish 
courts are each year being added, would be to send 
them to the paper mills, and to adopt such principles 
and methods of procedure as would reduce our great 
army of lawyers at least to the French standard. At 
the same time our statute books 'are full of enactments 
which could, w^ith advantage, be swept away. It is not 
the business of government to make men virtuous or 
religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences 
of his own folly. Government should be repressive 
no further than is necessary to secure liberty by 
protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on 
the part of others, and the moment government pro- 
hibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of 



1 86 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

defeating the very ends they are intended to serve. For 
while the tendency of laws which prohibit or command 
what the moral sense does not, is to bring law into con- 
tempt and produce hypocrisy and evasion, so the at- 
tempt to bring law to the aid of morals as to those acts 
and relations which do not plainly involve violation of 
the liberty of others, is to weaken rather than to 
strengthen moral influences ; to make the standard of 
wrong and right a legal one, and to enable him who 
can dexterously escape the punishment of the law to 
escape all punishment. Thus, for instance, there can 
be no doubt that the standard of commercial honesty 
would be much higher in the absence of laws for the 
collection of debts. As to all such matters, the cunning 
rogue keeps within the law or evades the law, while the 
existence of a legal standard lowers the moral standard 
and weakens the sanction of public opinions. 

Restrictions, prohibitions, interferences with the 
liberty of action in itself harmless, are evil in their 
nature, and, though they may sometimes be necessary, 
may for the most part be likened to medicines which 
suppress or modify some symptom without lessening 
the disease ; and, generally, where restrictive or pro- 
hibitive laws are called for, the evils they are designed 
to meet may be traced to previous restriction — to some 
curtailment of natural rights. 

All the tendencies of the time are to the absorption 
of smaller communities, to the enlargement of the 
area within which uniformity of law and administra- 
tion is necessary or desirable. But for this very reason 
we ought with the more tenacity to hold, wherever 
possible, to the principle of local self-government — 
the principle that, in things which concern only them> 
selves, the people of each political subdivision — town- 



THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 187 

ship, ward, city, or state, as may be — shall act for them- 
selves. We have neglected this principle within our 
States even more than in the relations between the 
State and National Governments, and in attempting to 
govern great cities by State commissions, and in 
making what properly belongs to County Supervisors 
and Township Trustees the business of legislatures, 
we have divided responsibility and promoted corrup- 
tion. 

Much, too, may be done to restrict the abuse of 
party machinery, and make the ballot the true expres- 
sion of the voter, by simplifying our elective methods. 
And a principle should always be kept in mind which 
we have largely ignored, that the people cannot man- 
age details, nor intelligently choose more than a few 
officials. To call upon the average citizen to vote at 
each election for a long string of candidates, as to the 
majority of whom he can know nothing unless he 
makes a business of politics, is to relegate choice to 
nominating conventions and political rings. And to 
divide power is often to destroy responsibility, and to 
provoke, not to prevent, usurpation. 

I can but briefly allude to these matters, though in 
themselves they deserve much attention. It is the 
more necessary to simplify government as much as 
possible and to improve, as much as may be, what may 
be called the mechanics of government, because, with 
the progress of society, the functions which govern- 
ment must assume steadily increase. It is only in the 
infancy of society that the functions of government 
can be properly confined to providing for the com- 
mon defence and protecting the weak against the 
physical power of the strong. As society develops in 
obedience to that law of integration and increasing 



1 88 SOJIAL PROBLEMS. 

complexity of which I spoke in the first of these chap- 
ters, it becomes necessary in order to secure equality 
that other regulations should be made and enforced, 
and upon the primary and restrictive functions of 
government are superimposed what may be called co- 
operative functions, the refusal to assume which leads, 
in many cases, to the disregard of individual rights as 
surely as does the assumption of directive and re- 
strictive functions not properly belonging to govern- 
ment. 

In the division of labor and the specialization of 
vocation that begin in an early stage of social develop- 
ment, and increase with it, the assumption by individ- 
uals of certain parts in the business of society neces- 
sarily operates to the exclusion of other individuals. 
Thus when one opens a store or an inn, or establishes 
a regular carriage of passengers or goods, or devotes 
himself to a special trade or profession of which all 
may have need, his doing of these things operates to 
prevent others from doing them, and leads to the es- 
tablishment of habits and customs which make resort 
to him a necessity to others, and which would put those 
who were denied this resort at a great disadvantage 
as compared with other individuals. Thus to secure 
equality it becomes necessary to so limit liberty of 
action as to oblige those who thus take upon them- 
selves quasi-public functions to serve without discrim- 
ination those who may apply to them upon customary 
conditions. This principle is recognized by all nations 
that have made any progress in civilization, in their 
laws relating to common carriers, innkeepers, etc. 

As civilization progresses and industrial develop- 
ment goes on, the concentration which results from 
the utilization of larger powers and improved pro- 



THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 189 

cesses operates more and more to the restriction and 
exclusion of competition, and to the establishment of 
complete monopolies. This we may see very clearly 
in the railroad. It is but a sheer waste of capital and 
labor to build one railroad alongside of another ; and 
even where this is done, an irresistible tendency leads 
either to consolidation or to combination ; and even at 
what are called competing points, competition is only 
transitional. The consolidation of companies, which 
in a few years bids fair to concentrate the whole rail- 
w^ay business of the United States in the hands of a 
half-a dozen managements, the pooling of receipts, and 
agreements as to business and charges, which even at 
competing points prevent competition, are due to a 
tendency inherent in the development of the railroad 
system, and of which it is idle to complain. 

The primary purpose and end of government being 
to secure the natural rights and equal liberty of each, 
all businesses that involve monopoly are within the 
necessary province of governmental regulation, and 
businesses that are in their nature complete monop- 
olies become properly functions of the State. As 
society develops, the State must assume these func- 
tions, in their nature co-operative, in order to secure 
the equal rights and liberty of all. That is to say, as, 
in the process of integration, the individual becomes 
more and more dependent upon and subordinate to 
the all, it becomes necessary for government, which is 
properly that social organ by which alone the whole 
body of individuals can act, to take upon itself, in the 
interest of all, certain functions which cannot safely 
be left to individuals. Thus out of the principle that 
it is the proper end and purpose of government to 
secure the natural rights and equal liberty of the indi- 



igo SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

vidual, grows the principle that it is the business of gov- 
ernment to do for the mass of individuals those things 
which cannot be done, or cannot be so well done, by in- 
dividual action. As in the development of species, the 
power of conscious, co-ordinated action of the whole 
being must assume greater and greater relative im- 
portance to the automatic action of parts, so is it in 
the development of society. This is the truth in so- 
cialism, which, although it is being forced upon us by 
industrial progress and social development, we are so 
slow to recognize. 

In the physical organism, weakness and disease re- 
sult alike from the overstraining of functions and from 
the non-use of functions. In like manner governments 
may be corrupted and public misfortunes induced by 
the failure to assume, as governmental, functions that 
properly belong to government as the controlling or- 
gan in the management of common interests, as well 
as from interferences by government in the proper 
sphere of individual action. This we may see in our 
own case. In what we attempt to do by government 
and what we leave undone we are like a man who 
should leave the provision of his dinner to the prompt- 
ings of his stomach while attempting to govern his 
digestion by the action of his will ; or like one who, in 
walking through a crowded street or over a bad road, 
should concentrate all his conscious faculties upon the 
movement of his legs without paying any attention to 
where he was going. 

To illustrate : It is not the business of government 
to interfere with the views which any one may hold of 
the Creator or with the worship he may choose to pay 
him, so long as the exercise of these individual rights 
does not conflict with the equal liberty of others ; and 



7/.E INUNCTIONS OF GOVERNAIENT. 



191 



the result of governmental interference in this domain 
has been hypocrisy, corruption, persecution, and relig- 
ious war. It is not the business of government to di- 
rect the employment of labor and capital, and to foster 
certain industries at the expense of other industries ; 
and the attempt to do so leads to all the waste, losSj 
and corruption due to protective tariffs. 

On the other hand, it is the business of government 
to issue money. This is perceived as soon as the great 
labor-saving invention of money supplants barter. To 
leave it to every one who chose to do so to issue money 
would be to entail general inconvenience and loss, to 
offer many temptations to roguery, and to put the 
poorer classes of society at a great disadvantage. 
These obvious considerations have everywhere, as so- 
ciety became well organized, led to the recognition of 
the coinage of money as an exclusive function of gov- 
ernment. When, in the progress of society, a further 
labor-saving improvement becomes possible by the 
substitution of paper for the precious metals as the 
material for money, the reasons why the issuance of 
this money should be made a government function be- 
come still stronger. The evils entailed by wildcat 
banking in the United States are too well remembered 
to need reference. The loss and inconvenience, the 
swindling and corruption that flowed from the as- 
sumption by each State of the Union of the power to 
license banks of issue ended with the war, and no one 
would now go back to them. Yet instead of doing what 
every public consideration impels us to, and assuming 
wholly and fully as the exclusive function of the Gen- 
eral Government the power to issue paper money, 
the private interests of bankers have, up to this, com- 
pelled us to the use of a hybrid currency, of which a 



192 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

large part, though guaranteed by the General Govern- 
ment, is issued and made profitable to corporations. 
The legitimate business of banking — the safe keeping 
and loaning of money, and the making and exchange 
of credits, is properly left to individuals and associa- 
tions ; but by leaving to them, even in part and under 
restrictions and guarantees, the issuance of money, tlie 
people of the United States suffer an annual loss of 
millions of dollars, and sensibly increase the influences 
which exert a corrupting effect upon their govern- 
ment. 

The principle evident here may be seen in even 
stronger light in another department of social life. 

The great "railroad question," with its dangers and 
perplexities, is a most striking instance of the evil 
consequences which result from the failure of the State 
to assume functions that properly belong to it. 

In rude stages of. social development, and where 
government, neglectful of its proper functions, has 
been occupied in making needless wars and imposing 
harmful restrictions, the making and improvement of 
highways has been left to individuals, who, to recom- 
pense themselves, have been permitted to exact tolls. 
It has, however, from the first, been recognized that 
these tolls are properly subject to governmental control 
and regulation. But the great inconveniences of this 
svstem, and the heavy taxes which, in spite of attempted 
regulation, are under it levied upon production, have 
led, as social advance went on, to the assumption of 
tlie making and maintenance of high roads as a gov- 
ernmental duty. In the course of social development 
came the invention of the railroad, which merged the 
business of making and maintaining roads with the 
business of carrying freight and passengers upon them. 



THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 193 

It is probably due to this that it was not at first recog- 
nized that the same reasons which render it necessary 
for the State to make and maintain common roads 
apply with even greater force to the building and oper- 
ating of railroads. In Great Britain and the United 
States, and, with partial exceptions, in other countries, 
railroads liave been left to private enterprise to build 
and private greed to manage. In the United^ States, 
where railroads are of more importance than in any 
other country in the world, our only recognition of 
their public character has been in the donation of lands 
and the granting of subsidies, which have been the 
cause of much corruption, and in some feeble attem.pts 
to regulate fares and freights. 

But the fact that the railroad system, as far as yet 
developed (and perhaps necessarily), combines trans- 
portation with the maintenance of roadways, renders 
competition all the more impossible, and brings it still 
more clearly within the province of the State. That 
it makes the assumption of the railroad business by 
the State a most serious matter is not to be denied. 
Even if it were possible, which may w^ell be doubted, 
as has been sometimes proposed, to have the roadway 
maintained by the State, leaving the furnishing of trains 
to private enterprise, it would be still a most serious 
matter. But look at it which way we may, it is so 
serious a matter that it must be faced. As the indi- 
vidual grows from childhood to maturity, he must meet 
difficulties and accept responsibilities from which he 
well might shrink. So is it with society. New powers 
bring new duties and new responsibilities. Impru- 
dence in going forward involves danger, but it is fatal 
to stand still. And however great be the difficulties 
involved in the assumption of the railroad business by 



194 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

the State, much greater difficulties are involved in the 
refusal to assume it. 

It is not necessary to go into any elaborate argument 
to show that the ownership and matiagement of rail- 
roads is a function of the State. That is proved be- 
yond dispute by the logic of events and of existing 
facts. Nothing is more obvious — at least in the 
United States, where the tendencies of modern devel- 
opment may be seen much more clearly than in 
Europe — than that a union of railroading with the other 
functions of government is inevitable. We may not 
like it, but we cannot avoid it. Either government 
must manage the railroads, or the railroads must man- 
age the government. There is no escape. To refuse 
one horn of the dilemma is to be impaled on the 
other. 

As for any satisfactory State regulation of railroads, 
the experience of our States shows it to be impossible. 
A strong-willed despot, clothed with arbitrary power, 
might curb such leviathans ; but popular governments 
cannot. The power of the whole people is, of course, 
greater than the power of the railroads, but it cannot 
be exerted steadily and in details. Even a small 
special interest is, by reason of its intelligence, com- 
pactness, and flexibility, more than a match for large 
and vague general interests ; it has the advantage 
which belongs to a well-armed and disciplined force in 
dealing with a mob. But in the number of its em- 
ployes, the amount of its revenues, and the extent of 
the interests which it controls, the railroad power is 
gigantic. And, growing faster than the growth of the 
country, it is tending still faster to concentration. It 
may be that the man is already born who will control 
the whole railroad system of the United States, as 



THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 195 

Vanderbilt, Gould, and Huntington now control great 
sections of it. 

Practical politicians all over the United States rec- 
ognize the utter hopelessness of contending with the 
railroad power. In many if not in most of the States, 
no prudent man will run for office if he believes the 
railroad power is against him. Yet in the direct appeal 
to the people a power of this kind is weakest, and rail- 
road kings rule States where, on any issues that came 
fairly before the people, they would be voted down. 
It is by throwing their weight into primaries, and 
managing conventions, by controlling the press, ma- 
nipulating legislatures, and filling the bench with their 
creatures, that the railroads best exert political power. 
The people of California, for instance, have voted 
against the railroad tune and again, or rather imagined 
they did, and even adopted a very bad new constitution 
because they supposed the railroad was against it. 
The result is, that the great railroad company, of whose 
domain California, with an area greater than twice 
that of Great Britain, is but one of the provinces, ab- 
solutely dominates the State. The men who really 
fought it are taken into its service or crushed, and 
powers are exerted in the interests of the corporation 
managers which no government would dare attempt. 
This company, heavily subsidized, in the first place, as 
a great public convenience, levies on commerce, not 
tolls, but tariffs. If a man goes into business requir- 
ing transportation he must exhibit his profits and take 
it into partnership for the lion's share. Importers are 
bound by an " iron-clad agreement " to give its agents 
access to their books, and if they do anything the com- 
pany deems against its interests they are fined or 
ruined by being placed at a disadvantage to their rivals 



196 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

in business. Three continental railroads, heavily sub- 
sidized by the nation under the impression that the 
competition would keep down rates, have now reached 
the Pacific. Instead of competing they have pooled 
their receipts. The line of steamers from San Fran- 
cisco to New York via the Isthmus receives 1,100,000 
a month to keep up fares and freights to a level with 
those exacted by the railroad, and if you would send 
goods from New York to San Francisco by way of the 
Isthmus, the cheapest way is to first ship them to Eng- 
land. Shippers to interior points are charged as much 
as though their goods were carried to the end of the 
road and then shipped back again ; and even, by means 
of the agreements mentioned, an embargo is laid upon 
ocean commerce by sailing vessels, wherever it might 
interfere with the monopoly. 

I speak of California only as an instance. The 
power of the railroads is apparent in State after State, 
as it is in the National Government. Nothing can be 
clearer than that, if present conditions must continue, 
the American people might as well content themselves 
to surrender political power to these great corporations 
and their affiliated interests. There is no escape from 
this. The railroad managers cannot keep out of politics 
even if they wished to. The difficulties of the rail- 
road question do not arise from the fact that pecul- 
iarly bad men have got control of the railroads : they 
arise from the nature of the railroad business and its 
intimate relations to other interests and industries. 

But it will be said, " If the railroads are even now a 
corrupting element in our politics, what would they 
be if the government were to own and to attempt to 
run them ? Is not governmental management notori- 
ously corrupt and inefficient ? Would not the effect 



THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 197 

of adding such a vast army to the already great num- 
ber of government employes, of increasing so enor- 
mously the revenues and expenditures of government, 
be to enable those who got control of government to 
defy opposition and perpetuate their power indefi- 
nitely ; and would it not be, finally, to sink the whole 
political organization in a hopeless slough of corrup- 
tion ? " 

My reply is, that great as these dangers may be, they 
must be faced, lest worse befall us. When a gale sets 
him on a lee shore, the seaman must make sail, even at 
the risk of having his canvas fly from the bolt-ropes 
and his masts go by the board. The dangers of wind 
and sea urge him to make everything snug as may be, 
alow and aloft ; to get rid of anything that might di- 
minish the weatherly qualities of his ship, and to send 
his best helmsmen to the wheel, — not to supinely ac- 
cept the certain destruction of the rocks. 

Instead of belittling the dangers of adding to the 
functions of government as it is at present, what I am 
endeavoring to point out is the urgent necessity of 
simplifying and improving government, that it may 
safely assume the additional functions that social de- 
velopment forces upon it. It is not merely necessary 
to prevent government from getting more corrupt and 
more inefficient, though we can no more do that by a 
negative policy than the seaman can lay-to in a gale 
without drifting ; it is necessary to make government 
much more efficient, and much less corrupt. The dan- 
gers that menace us are not accidental. They spring 
from a universal law which we cannot escape. That 
law is the one I pointed out in the first chapter of this 
book — that every advance brings new dangers and re- 
quires higher and more alert intelligence. As the more 



198 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

highly organized animal cannot live unless it have a 
more fully developed brain than those of lower animal 
organizations, so the more highly organized society 
must perish unless it bring to the management of social 
affairs greater intelligence and higher moral sense. 
The ereat material advances which modern inventions 
have enabled us to make, necessitate corresponding 
social and political advances. Nature knows no "Baby 
Act." We must live up to her conditions or not live 
at all. 

My purpose here is to show how important it is that 
we simplify government, purify politics and improve 
social conditions, as a preliminary to showing how 
much in all these directions may be accomplished by 
one single great reform. But although I shall be 
obliged to do so briefly, it may be worth while, even if 
briefly, to call attention to some principles that should 
not be forgotten in thinking of the assumption by the 
State of such functions as the running of railroads. 

In the first place, I think it may be accepted as a 
principle proved by experience, that any considerable 
interest having necessary relations with government is 
more corruptive of government when acting upon gov- 
ernment from without than when assumed by govern- 
ment. Let a ship in midocean drop her anchor and 
pay out her cable, and though she would be relieved 
of some weight, since part of the weight of anchor and 
cable would be supported by the water, not only would 
her progress be retarded, but she would refuse to an- 
swer her helm, and become utterly unmanageable. 
Yet, assumed as part of the ship, and properly stowed 
on board, anchor and cable no longer perceptibly in- 
terfere with her movements. 

A standing army is a corrupting influence, and a 



THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 199 

danger to popular liberties ; but who would maintain 
that on this ground it were wiser, if a standing army 
must be kept, that it should be enlisted and paid by 
private parties, and hired of them by the state ? Such 
an army would be far moi'e corrupting and far more 
dangerous than one maintained directly by the state, 
and would soon make its leaders masters of the state. 

I do not think the postal department of the govern- 
ment, with its extensive ramifications and its numerous 
employes, begins to be as important a factor in our 
politics, or exerts so corrupting an influence, as would 
a private corporation carrying on this business, and 
which would be constantly tempted or forced into poli- 
tics to procure favorable or prevent unfavorable legis- 
lation. Where individual States and the General Gov- 
ernment have substituted public printing-offices for 
Public Printers, who themselves furnished material 
and hired labor, I think the result has been to lessen, 
not to increase, corruptive influences ; and, speaking 
generally, I think experience shows that in all depart- 
ments of government the system of contracting for 
work and supplies has, on the whole, led to more cor- 
ruption than the system of direct employment. The 
reason I take to be, that there is in one case a much 
greater concentration of corruptive interests and power 
than in the other. 

The inefficiency, extravagance, and corruption which 
we commonly attribute to governmental management 
are mostly in those departments which do not come 
under the public eye, and little concern, if they con- 
cern at all, public convenience. Whether the six new 
steel cruisers which the persistent lobbying of contrac- 
tors has induced Congress to order, are well or illy 
built the American people will never know, except as 



200 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

they learn through the newspapers, and the fact will 
no more affect their comfort and convenience than does 
the fit of the Sultan's new breeches, or the latest 
changes in officers' millinery which it has pleased the 
Secretary of the Navy to make. But let the mails go 
astray or the postman fail in his rounds, and there is at 
once an outcry. The Post-Office Department is man- 
aged with greater efficiency than any other department 
of the national government, because it comes close to 
the people. To say the very least, it is managed as effi- 
ciently as any private, company could manage such a 
vast business, and I think, on the whole, as economi- 
cally. And the scandals and abuses that have arisen 
in it have been, for the most part, as to out-of-the-way 
places, and things of which there was little or no public 
consciousness. So in England, the telegraph and par- 
cel-carrying and savings bank businesses are managed 
by government more efficiently and economically than 
before by private corporations. 

Lilve these businesses — perhaps even more so — the 
railroad business comes directly under the notice of 
the people. It so immediately concerns the interests, 
the convenience, and the safety of the great body, that 
under public management it would compel that close 
and quick attention that secures efficiency. 

It seems to me tiiat in regard to public affairs we 
too easily accept the dictum that faithful and efficient 
work can only be secured by the hopes of pecuniary 
profit, or the fear of pecuniary loss. We get faithful 
and efficient work in our colleges and similar institu- 
tions without this, not to speak of the army and navy, 
or of the postal and educational departments of gov- 
ernment ; and be this as it may, our railroads are really 
j'un by men who, from switch-tender to general super- 



THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 201 

intendent, have no pecuniary interest in the business 
other than to get their pay — in most cases paltry and 
inefficient — and hold their places. Under govern- 
mental ownership they would have, at the very least, 
all the incentives to faithfulness and efficiency that 
they have now, for that governmental management of 
railroads must involve the principles of civil service 
reform goes without the saying. The most determined 
supporter of the spoils system would not care to resign 
the safety of limb and life to engineers and brakemen 
appointed for political services. 

Look, moreover, at the railroad system as it exists 
now. That it is not managed in the interests of the 
public is clear ; but is it managed in the interests of 
its owners ? Is it managed with that economy, effi- 
ciency and intelligence that are presumed to be the 
results of private ownership and control ? On the con- 
trary, while the public interests are utterly disregarded, 
the interests of the stockholders are in most cases 
little better considered. Our railroads are really man- 
aged in the interests of unscrupulous adventurers, 
whose purpose is to bull and bear the stock market ; 
by men who make the interests of the property they 
manage subservient to their personal interests in other 
railroads or in other businesses ; who speculate in 
lands and tov/n sites, who give themselves or their 
friends contracts for supplies and special rates for 
transportation, and who often deliberately Vv^-reck the 
corporation they control and rob stockholders to the 
last cent. From one end to the other, the m.a.nagement 
of our railroad system, as it now exists, reeks with job- 
bery and fraud. 

That ordinary roads, bridges, etc., should not be 
maintained for profit, either public or privcate, is an 



202 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

accepted principle, and the State of New York has re- 
cently gone so far as to abolish ail tolls on tiie Eri^^ 
Canal. Our postal service we merely aim to make self- 
sustaining, and no one would now think of proposing 
that the rates of postage should be increased in order 
to furnish public revenues as they are yet made to fur- 
nisli in some countries ; still less would any one think of 
proposing to abandon the government postal service, 
and turn the business over to individuals or corpora- 
tions. In the beginning the postal service was carried 
on by individuals with a view to profits. Had that 
system been continued to the present day, it is certain 
tliat we should not begin to have such extensive and 
regular postal facilities as we have now, nor such cheap 
rates ; and all the objections that are now urged 
against tlie government assumption of the railroad 
business would be urged against government carriage 
of letters. We never can enjoy the full benefits of the 
invention of the railroad until we make the railroads 
public property, managed by public servants in the 
public interests. And thus will a great cause of the 
corruption of government, and a great cause of m^on- 
strous fortunes, be destroyed. 

All I have said of the railroad applies, of course, to 
the telegraph, the telephone, the supplying of cities 
w4th gas, water, heat, and electricity — in short, to all 
businesses which are in their nature monopolies. I 
speak of the railroad only because the magnitude of 
the business makes its assumption by the State the 
most formidable of such undertakings. 

Businesses that are in their nature monopolies are 
properly functions of the State. The State must con- 
trol or assume them, in self-defence, and for the pro- 
tection of the equal rights of citizens. But beyond 



TFIE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 203 

this, the field in which the State may operate benefi- 
cially as the executive of the great co-operative associa- 
tion, into which it is the tendency of true civilization 
to blend society, will widen with the improvement of 
government and the growth of public spirit. 

We have already made an important step in this di- 
rection in our public school S3^stem. Our public 
schools are not maintained for the poor, as are the 
English board schools — where, moreover, payment is 
required from all who can pay ; nor yet is their main 
motive the protection of the State against ignorance. 
These are subsidiary motives. But the main motive 
for the maintenance of our public schools is, that by 
far the greater part of our people find them the best 
and most economical means of educating their children. 
American society is, in fact, organized by the operation 
of government into co-operative educational associa- 
tions, and with such happy results that in no State where 
the public school system has obtained would any proposi- 
tion to abolish it get respectful consideration. In spite 
of the corruption of our politics, our public schools 
are, on the whole, much better than private schools ; 
while by their association of the children of rich and 
poor, of Jew and Gentile, of Protestant and Catholic, 
of Republican and Democrat, they are of inestimable 
value in breaking down prejudice and checking the 
growth of class feeling. It is likewise to be remarked 
as to our public school system, that corruptive influ- 
ences seem to spring rather from our not having gone 
far enough than from our having gone too far in the 
direction of State action. In some of our States the 
books used by the children are supplied at public ex- 
pense, being considered school property, which the 
pupil receives on entering the school or class, and re- 



204 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

turns when leaving. In most of them, however, the 
pupils, unless their parents cannot afford the outlay, 
are required to furnish their own books. Experience 
has shown the former system to be much the best, not 
only because, when books are furnished to all, there is 
no temptation of those who can afford to purchase 
books to falsely plead indigence, and no humiliation 
on the part of those who cannot ; but because the num- 
ber of books required is much less, and they can be pur- 
chased at cheaper rates. This not only affects a large 
economy in the aggregate expenditure, but lessens an 
important corruptive influence. For the strife of the 
great school-book publishers to get their books adopted 
in the public schools, in which most of them make no 
scruple of resorting to bribery wherever they can, has 
done much to degrade the character of school boards. 
This corruptive influence can only be fully done away 
with by manufacturing school-books at public expense, 
as has been in a number of the States proposed. 

The public library system, which, beginning in the 
public-spirited city of Boston, is steadily making its 
way over the country, and under which both reading 
and lending libraries are maintained at public expense 
for the free use of the public, is another instance of the 
successful extension of the co-operative functions of 
government. So are the public parks and recreation 
grounds which we are beginning to establish. 

Not only is it possible to go much further in the 
direction of thus providing, at public expense, for the 
public health, education and recreation, and for public 
encouragement of science and invention, but if we can 
simplify and purify government it will become possible 
for society in its various subdivisions to obtain in many 
other ways, but in much larger degree, those advan- 



THE FUNCTIONS OF GOVERNMENT. 205 

tages for its members that voluntary co-operative soci- 
eties seek to obtain. Not only could the most enor- 
mous economies thus be obtained, but the growing 
tendency to adulteration and dishonesty, as fatal to 
morals as to health, would be checked,'^' and at least 
such an organization of industry be reached as would 
very greatly reduce the appropriative power of aggre- 
gated capital, and prevent those strifes that may be 
likened to wars. The natural progress of social devel- 
opment is unmistakably toward co-operation, or, if the 
word be preferred, toward socialism, though I dislike to 
use a word to which such various and vague meanings 
are attached. Civilization is the art of living together 
in closer relations. That mankind should dwell to- 
gether in unity is the evident intent of the Divine mind 
— of that Will, expressed in the immutable laws of the 
physical and moral universe which reward obedience 
and punish disobedience. The dangers which m.enace 
modern society are but the reverse of blessings which 
modern society may grasp. The concentration that is 
going on in all branches of industry is a necessary ten- 
dency of our advance in the material arts. It is not in 
itself an evil. If in anything its results are evil, it is 
simply because of our bad social adjustments. The 

* There are many manufactured articles for which the producer now 
receives only a third of the price paid by the consumer, while adulter- 
ation has gone far beyond detection by the individual purchaser. Not 
to speak of the compounding of liquors, of oleomargarine and glucose, 
a single instance will show how far adulteration is carried. The adul- 
terations in ground coffee have driven many people to purchase their 
coffee in the bean and grind it themselves. To meet this, at least one 
firm of large coffee-roaste s, and I presume most of them, have adopted 
an invention by means of which imitation coffee beans, exactly resem- 
bling in appearance the genuine article, are stamped out of a paste. 
These they mix in large quantities with real coffee. 



2o6 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

construction of this world in which we find ourselves 
is such that a thousand men working together can pro- 
duce many times more than the same thousand men 
working singly. But this does not make it necessary 
that the nine hundred and ninety-nine must be the 
virtual slaves of the one. 

Let me repeat it, though again and again, for it is, 
it seems to me, the great lesson which existing social 
facts impress up@n him who studies them, and that it 
is all-important that we should heed. The natural laws 
which permit of social advance require that advance to 
be intellectual and moral as well as material. The nat- 
ural laws which give us the steamship, the locomotive, 
the telegraph, the printing press, and all the thousand 
inventions \ij which our mastery over matter and ma- 
terial conditions is increased, require greater social in- 
telligence and a higher standard of social morals. 
Especially do they make more and more imperative 
that justice between man and man which demands the 
recognition of the equality of natural rights. 

^' Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 
ness [right or just doing], and all these things shall be 
added unto you," The first step toward a natural and 
healthy organization of society is to secure to all men 
their natural, equal, and inalienable rights in the mate- 
rial universe. To do this is not to do everything that 
may be necessary ; but it is to make all else easier. 
And unless we do this nothing else will avail. 

I have in this chapter touched briefly upon subjects 
that for thorough treatment would require much more 
space. My purpose has been to show that the simpli- 
fication and purification of government is rendered the 
more necessary, on account of functions which indus- 
trial development is forcing upon government, and the 



WHAT WE MUST DO. 207 

further functions which it is becoming more and more 
evident that it would be advantageous for government 
to assume. In succeeding chapters I propose to show 
how, by recognizing in practicable method the equal 
and inalienable rights of men to the soil of their coun- 
try, government may be greatly simplified, and cor- 
rupting influences destroyed. For it is indeed true, as 
the French Assembly declared, that public misfortunes 
and corruptions of government spring from ignorance, 
neglect or contempt of human rights. 

Of course in this chapter and elsewhere in speaking 
of government, the state, the community, etc., I use 
these terms in a general sense, without reference to 
existing political divisions. What should properly be- 
long to the township or ward, what to the county or 
state, what to the nation, and what to such federations 
of nations as it is in the manifest line of civilization to 
evolve, is a matter into which I have not entered. As 
to the proper organization of government, and the dis- 
tribution of powers, there is much need for thought. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

WHAT WE MUST DO. 

At the risk of repetition let me recapitulate: 
The main source of the difficulties that menace us is 
the growing inequality in the distribution of wealth. 
To this all modern inventions seem to contribute, and 
the movement is hastened by political corruption, and 
by special monopolies established by abuse of legislative 
power. But the primary cause lies evidently in fun- 



2o8 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

damental social adjustments — in the relations which we 
have established between labor and the natural material 
and means of labor — between man and the planet which 
is his dwelling-place, workshop, and storehouse. As 
the earth must be the foundation of every material 
structure, so institutions which regulate the use of 
land constitute the foundation of every social organi- 
zation, and must affect the whole character and devel- 
opment of that organization. In a society where the 
equality of natural rights is recognized, it is manifest 
that there can be no great disparity in fortunes. None 
except the physically incapacitated will be dependent 
on others ; none will be forced to sell their labor to 
others. There will be differences in wealth, for there 
are differences among men as to energy, skill, prudence, 
foresight, and industry ; but there can be no very rich 
class, and no very poor class ; and, as each generation 
becomes possessed of equal natural opportunities, 
whatever differences in fortune grow up in one gener- 
ation will not tend to perpetuate themselves. In such 
a community, whatever may be its form, the political 
organization must be essentially democratic. 

But, in a community where the soil is treated as the 
property of but a portion of the people, some of these 
people from the very day of their birth must be at a dis- 
advantage, and some will have an enormous advantage. 
Those who have no rights in the land will be forced to 
sell their labor to the landholders for what they can 
get ; and, in fact, cannot live without the landlords' per- 
mission. Such a community must inevitably develop a 
class of masters and a class of serfs — a class possessing 
great wealth, and a class having nothing ; and its polit- 
ical organization, no matter what its form, must become 
a virtual despotism. 



WHAT WE MUST DO. 209 

Our fundamental mistake is in treating^ land as pri- 
vate property. On this false basis modern civilization 
everywhere rests, and hence, as material progress goes 
on, is everywhere developing such monstrous inequal- 
ities in condition as must ultimately destroy it. As 
without land man cannot exist ; as his very physical 
substance, and all that he can acquire or make, must 
be drawn from the land, the ownership of the land of a 
country is necessarily the ownership of the people of 
that country — involving their industrial, social, and po- 
litical subjection. Here is the great reason why the 
labor-saving inventions, of which our century has been 
so strikingly prolific, have signally failed to improve the 
condition of laborers. Labor-saving inventions pri- 
marily increase the power of labor, and should, there- 
fore, increase wages and improve tlie condition of the 
laboring classes. But this only where land is free to 
labor ; for labor cannot exert itself without land. No 
labor-saving inventions can enable us to make some- 
thing out of nothing, or in anywise lessen our depend- 
ence upon land. They can merely add to the efficiency 
of labor in working up the raw materials drawn from 
land. Therefore, wherever land has been subjected to 
private ownership, the ultimate effect of labor-saving 
inventions, and of all improved processes and discover- 
ies, is to enable landowners to demand, and labor to 
pay, more for the use of land. Land becomes more 
valuable, but the wages of labor do not increase ; on 
the contrary,- if there is any margin for possible reduc- 
tions, they may be absolutely reduced. 

This we already see, and tliat in spite of the fact that 

a very important part of the effect of modern invention 

has been by the improvement of transportation to open 

up new land. What will be the effect of continued im- 

14 



2IO SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

provement in industrial processes when the land of this 
continent is all " fenced in," as in a few more years it 
will be, we may imagine if we consider what would have 
been the effect of labor-saving inventions upon Europe 
had no New World been opened. 

But it may be said that, in asserting that where land 
is private property the benefit of industrial improve- 
ments goes ultimately to landowners, I ignore facts, 
and attribute to one principle more importance than is 
its due, since it is clear that a great deal of the increased 
wealth arising from modern improvements has not gone 
to the owners of land, but to capitalists, manufacturers, 
speculators, railroad owners, and the holders of other 
monopolies than that of land. It may be pointed out 
that the richest family in Europe are the Rothschilds, 
who are more loan-jobbers and bankers than landown- 
ers ; that the richest in America are the Vanderbilts, 
and not the Astors ; that Jay Gould got his money, not 
by securing land, but by bulling and bearing the stock 
market,' by robbing people with hired lawyers and pur- 
chased judges and corrupted legislatures. I may be 
asked if I attach no importance to the jobbery and rob- 
bery of the tariff, under pretence of " protecting Ameri- 
can labor ; " to the jugglery with the monetary system, 
from the wild-cat State banks and national bankinsf 
system down to the trade-dollar swindle ? 

In previous chapters I have given answers to all SQch 
objections ; but to repeat in concise form, my reply is, 
that I do not ignore any of these things, but that they 
in nowise invalidate the self-evident principle that land 
being private property, the ultimate benefit of all im- 
provements in production must go to the landowners. 
To say that if a man continues to play at '' rondo " the 
table will ultimately get his money, is not to say that 



WHAT WE MUST DO. 21 1 

in the meantime he may not have his pocket picked. 
Let me illustrate : 

Suppose an island, the soil of which is conceded to 
be the property of a few of the inhabitants. The rest 
of the inhabitants of this island must either hire land 
of these landowners, paying rent for it, or sell their 
labor to them, receiving wages. As population in- 
creases, the competition between the non-landowners 
for employment or the means of employment must in- 
crease rent and decrease wages until the non-landown- 
ers get merely a bare living, and the landholders get 
all the rest of the produce of the island. Now, sup- 
pose any improvement or invention made which will 
increase the efficiency of labor — it is manifest that, as 
soon as it becomes general, the competition between 
the non-landholders must give to the landholders all 
the benefit. No matter how great the improvemient be, 
it can have but this ultimate result. If the improve- 
ments are so great that all the wealth of the island can 
produce or that the landowners care for can be obtained 
with one-half the labor, they can let the other half of 
the laborers starve or evict them into the sea ; or if they 
are pious people of the conventional sort, who believe 
that God Almighty intended these laborers to live, 
though he did not provide any land for them to live on, 
they may support them as paupers or ship them off to 
some other country as the English Government is ship- 
ping the "surplus" Irishmen. But whether they let 
them die or keep them alive, they would have no use 
for them, and, if improvement still went on, they would 
have use for less and less of them. 

This is the general principle. 

But in addition to this population of landowners and 
their tenants and laborers, let us suppose there to be 



212 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

on the island a storekeeper, an inventor, a gambler 
and a pirate. To make our supposition conform to 
modern fashions, we will suppose a highly respectable 
gambler — one of the kind who endows colleges and 
subscribes to the conversion of the heathen — and a 
very gentlemanly pirate, who flies on his swift cruiser 
the ensign of a yacht club instead of the old raw head 
and bloody bones, but wiio, even more regularly and 
efficiently than the old-fashioned pirate, levies his 
toll. 

Let us suppose the storekeeper, the gambler and the 
pirate well established in business and making money. 
Along comes the inventor, and says : " 1 have an in- 
vention which will greatly add to the efficiency of la- 
bor and enable you to greatly increase the produce of 
this island, so that there will be very much more to 
divide among you all ; but, as a condition for telling 
you of it, I want you to agree that I shall have a 
royalty upon its use." This is agreed to, the inven- 
tion is adopted, and does greatly increase the produc- 
tion of wealth. But it does not benefit the laborers. 
The competition between them still forces them to 
pay such high rent or take such low wages that they 
are no better off than before. They still barely live. 
But the whole benefit of the invention does not in 
this case go to the landowners. The inventor's roy- 
alty gives him a great income, while the storekeeper, 
the gambler and the pirate all find their incomes much 
increased. The incomes of each one of these four, we 
may readily suppose, are larger than any single one 
of the landowners, and their gains offer the most 
striking contrast to the poverty of the laborers, who 
are bitterly disappointed at not getting any share of 
the increased wealth that followed the improvement. 



WHAT WE MUST DO. 



213 



Something they feel is wrong, and some among them 
even begin to murmur that the Creator of the island 
surely did not make it for the benefit of only a few 
of its inhabitants, and that, as the common creatures 
of the Creator, they, too, have some rights to the use of 
the soil of the island. 

Suppose then some one to arise and say: "What is 
the use of discussing such abstractions as the land 
question, that cannot come into practical politics for 
many a day, and that can only excite dissension and 
general unpleasantness, and that, moreover, savor of 
communism, which as you laborers, who have nothing 
but your few rags, very well know is a highly wicked 
and dangerous thing, meaning the robbery of widow 
women and orphans, and being opposed to religion ? 
Let us be practical. You laborers are poor and can 
scarcely get a living, because you are swindled by the 
storekeeper, taxed by the inventor, gouged by the 
gambler and -robbed by the pirate. Landholders and 
non-landholders, our interests are in common as 
against these vampires. Let us unite to stop their 
exactions. The storekeeper makes a profit of from 
ten to fifty per cent, on all that he sells. Let us form 
a co-operative society, which will sell everything at 
cost and enable laborers to get rich by saving the 
storekeeper's profit on all that they use. As for the 
inventor, he has been already well enough paid. Let 
us stop his royalty, and there will be so much more to 
divide between the landowners and non-landowners. 
As for the gambler and the pirate, let us put a sum- 
mary end to their proceedings and drive them off the 
island ! " 

Let us imagine a roar of applause, and these prop- 
ositions carried out. What then ? Then the land- 



214 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

owners would become so much the richer. The labor- 
ers would gain nothing, unless it might be in a clearer 
apprehension of the ultimate cause of their poverty. 
For, although by getting rid of the storekeeper, the 
laborers might be able to live cheaper, tlie competition 
between them would soon force them to give up this 
advantage to the landowners by taking lower wages or 
giving higher rents. And so the elimination of the 
inventor's royalty, and of the pickings and stealings of 
the gambler and pirate, would only make land more 
valuable and increase the incomes of the landholders. 
The saving made by getting rid of the storekeeper, 
inventor, gambler and pirate would accrue to tlieir 
benefit, as did the increase in production from the ap- 
plication of the invention. "^ 

That all this is true we may see, as I have shown. 
The growth of the railroad system has, for instance, 
resulted in putting almost the whole transportation 
business of the country in the hands of -giant monop- 
olies, who, for the most part, charge "what the traffic 
will bear," and who frequently discriminate in the most 
outrageous way against localities. The effect where 
this is done, as is alleged in the complaints that are 
made, is to reduce the price of land. And all this might 
be remedied, without raising Vv^ages or improving the 
condition of labor. It would only make land more 
valuable — that is to say, in consideration of the saving 
effected in transportation, labor would have to pay a, 
higher premium for land. 

So with all monopolies, and their name is legion. 
If all monopolies, save the monopoly of land, were 
abolished ; if, even, by means of co-operative societies, 
or other devices, the profits of exchange were saved, 
and goods passed from producer to consumer at. the 



WHAT WE MUST DO. 215 

minimum of cost ; if government were reformed to the 
point of absolute purity and economy, nothing what- 
ever would be done toward equalization in the distri- 
bution of wealth. The competition between laborers, 
who, having no rights in the land, cannot work without 
some one else's permission, would increase the value 
of land, and force wages to the point of bare subsist- 
ence. 

Let me not be misunderstood. I do not say that 
in the recognition of the equal and unalienable right 
of each human being to the natural elements from 
which life must be supported and wants satisfied, lies 
the solution of all social problems. I fully recognize 
the fact that even after we do this, much will remain 
to do. We might recognize the equal right to land, 
and yet tyranny and spoliation be continued. But 
whatever else we do, so long as we fail to recognize 
the equal right to the elements of nature, nothing will 
avail to remedy that unnatural inequality in the dis- 
tribution of wealth which is fraught with so much evil 
and danger. Reform as w^e may, until we make this 
fundamental reform our material progress can but tend 
to differentiate our people into the monstrously rich 
and the frightfully poor. Whatever be the increase of 
wealth, the masses will still be ground toward the point 
of bare subsistence — we must still have our great crimi- 
nal classes, our paupers and our tramps, men and 
women driven to degradation and desperation from 
inability to make an honest living. 



2i6 SOCIAL PROBLEMS, 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE FIRST GREAT REFORM. 

Do what we may, we can accomplish nothing real 
and lasting until we secure to all the first of those 
equal and unalienable rights with which, as our Dec- 
laration of Independence has it, man is endowed by 
his Creator — the equal and unalienable riglit to the 
use and benefit of natural opportunities. 

There are people who are always trying to find some 
mean between right and wrong — people who, if they 
w^ere to see a man about to be unjustly beheaded, 
might insist that the proper thing to do would be to 
chop off his feet. These are the people who, begin- 
ning to recognize the importance of the land question, 
propose in Ireland and England such measures as ju- 
dicial valuations of rents and peasant proprietary, and 
in the United States, the reservation to actual settlers 
of what is left of the public lands, and the limitation 
of estates. 

Nothing whatever can be accomplished by such 
timid, illogical measures. If we would cure social 
disease we must go to the root. 

There is no use in talking of reserving what there 
may be left of our public domain to actual settlers. 
That would be merely a locking of the stable door 
after the horse Iiad been stolen, and even if it were 
not, would avail nothing. 

There is no use in talking about restricting the 
amount of land any one man may hold. That, even if 
it were practicable, were idle, and would not meet the 



THE FIRST GREAT REFORM. 217 

difficulty. The ownership of an acre in a city may 
give more command of the labor of others than the 
ownership of a hundred thousand acres in a sparsely 
settled district, and it is utterly impossible by any legal 
device to prevent the concentration of property so 
long as the general causes which irresistibly tend to 
the concentration of property remain untouched. So 
long as the wages tend to the point of a bare living for 
the laborer we cannot stop the tendency of property 
of all kinds to concentration, and this must be the 
tendency of wages until equal rights in the soil of 
their country are secured to all. We can no more 
abolish industrial slavery by limiting the size of es- 
tates than we could abolish chattel slavery by putting 
a limit on the number of slaves a single slaveholder 
might own. In the one case as in the other, so far as 
such restrictions could be made operative they would 
only increase the difficulties of abolition by enlarging 
the class who would resist it. 

There is no escape from it. If we would save the 
republic before social inequality and political demoral- 
ization have reached the point when no salvation is 
possible, we must assert the principle of the Declara- 
tion of Independence, acknowledge the equal and un- 
alienable rights Avhich inhere in man by endowment of 
the Creator, and make land common property. 

If there seems anything strange in the idea that all 
men have equal and unalienable rights to the use of 
the earth, it is merely that habit can blind us to the 
most obvious truths. Slavery, polygamy, cannibalism, 
the flattening of children's heads, or the squeezing of 
their feet, seem perfectly natural to those brought up 
where such institutions or customs exist. But, as a 
matter of fact, nothing is more repugnant to the nat- 



218 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

ural perceptions of men than that land should be 
treated as subject to individual ownership, like things 
produced by labor. It is only among an insignificant 
fraction of the people who have lived on the earth that 
the idea that the earth itself could be made private 
property has ever obtained ; nor has it ever obtained 
save as the result of a long course of usurpation, tyr- 
anny and fraud. This idea reached development 
among the Romans, whom it corrupted and destroyed. 
It took many generations for it to make its way among 
our ancestors ; and it did not, in fact, reach full rec- 
ognition until two centuries ago, when, in the time of 
Charles II., the feudal dues were shaken off by a land- 
holders' parliament. We accepted it as we have ac- 
cepted the aristocratic organization of our army and 
navy, and many other things, in which we have ser- 
vilely followed European custom. Land being plenty 
and population sparse, we did not realize what it would 
mean when in two or three cities we should have the 
population of the thirteen colonies. But it is time 
that we should begin to think of it now when we see 
ourselves confronted, in spite of our free political in- 
stitutions, with all the problems that menace Europe 
— when, though our virgin soil is not quite yet fenced 
in, we have a "working class," a " criminal class" and 
a '' pauper class ;" when there are already thousands 
of so-called /r*?^ citizens of the republic who cannot by 
the hardest toil make a living for their families, and 
when we are, on the other hand, developing such mon- 
strous fortunes as the w^orld has not seen since great 
estates were eating out the heart of Rome. 

What more preposterous than the treatment of land 
as individual property ? In every essential land differs 
from those things which being the product of human 



THE FIRST GREAT REFORM. 219 

labor are rightfully property. It is the creation of 
God ; they are produced by mPcU. It is fixed in quan- 
tity ; they may be increased inimitably. It exists, 
though generations come and go ; they in a little 
while decay and pass again into the elements. What 
more preposterous than that one tenant for a day of 
tliis rolling sphere should collect rent for it from his 
co-tenants, or sell to them for a price what was here 
ages before him and. will be here ages after him ? 
What more preposterous than that we, living in New 
York city in this 1883, should be working for a lot of 
landlords who get the authority to live on our labor 
from some English king dead and gone these centu- 
ries ? What more preposterous than that w^e, the 
present population of the United States, should pre- 
sume to grant to our own people or to foreign capital- 
ists the right to strip of their earnings American 
citizens of the next generation ? What more utterly 
preposterous than these titles to land ? Although the 
whole people of the earth in one generation were to 
unite, they could no more sell title to land against the 
next generation than they could sell that generation. 
It is a self-evident truth, as Thomas Jefferson said, 
that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living. 

Nor can any defence of private property in land be 
made on the ground of expediency. On the contrary, 
look w^here you will, and it is evident that the private 
ownership of land keeps land out of use ; that the 
speculation it engenders crowds population where it 
ought to be more diffused, diffuses it w^here it ought 
to be closer together ; compels those who wish to 
improve to pay away a large part of their capital, or 
mortgage their labor for years before they are per- 
mitted to improve ; prevents men from going to work 



220 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

for themselves who would gladly do so, crowding 
them into deadly competition with each other for the 
wages of employers ; and enormously restricts the pro- 
duction of wealth while causing the grossest inequality 
in its distribution. 

No assumption can be more gratuitous than that 
constantly made that absolute ownership of land is 
necessary to the improvement and proper use of land. 
What is necessary to the best usq of land is the' security 
of improvements — the assurance that the labor and 
capital expended upon it shall enjoy their reward. 
This is a very different thing from the absolute owner- 
ship of land. Some of the finest buildings in New 
York are erected upon leased ground. Nearly the 
wliole of London and other English cities, and great 
parts of Philadelphia and Baltimore, are so built. All 
sorts of mines are opened and operated on leases. In 
California and Nevada the most costly mining opera- 
tions, involving the expenditure of immense amounts 
of capital, were undertaken upon no better security 
than the mining regulations, which gave no ownership 
of the land, but only guaranteed possession as long as 
the mines were worked. 

If shafts can be sunk and tunnels can be run, and 
the most costly machinery can be put up on public 
land on mere security of possession, why could not 
improvements of all kinds be made on that security ? 
If individuals will use and improve land belonging to 
other individuals, why would they not use and im- 
prove land belonging to the whole people ? What is 
to prevent land owned by Trinity Church, by the Sail- 
ers' Snug Harbor, by the Astors or Rheinlanders, or 
any other corporate or individual owners, from being 
as well improved and used as now, if the ground rents, 



THE FIRST GREAT REFORM. 221 

instead of going to corporations or individuals, went 
into the public treasury ? 

In point of fact, if land were treated as the common 
property of the whole people, it would be far more 
readily improved than now, for then the impr.over 
would get the whole benefit of his improvements. 
Under the present system, the price that must be paid 
for land operates as a powerful deterrent to improve- 
ment. And when the improver has secured land either 
by purchase or by lease, he is taxed upon his improve- 
ments, and heavily taxed in various ways upon all that 
he uses. Were land treated as the property of the 
whole people, the ground rent accruing to the com- 
munity would suffice for public purposes, and all other 
taxation might be dispensed with. The improver could 
more easily get land to improve, and would retain for 
himself the full benefit of his improvements exempt 
from taxation. 

To secure to all citizens their equal right to the 
land on which they live, does not mean, as some of 
the ignorant seem to suppose, that every one must be 
given a farm, and city land be cut up into little pieces. 
It would be impossible to secure the equal rights of 
all in that v\^ay, even if such division were not in itself 
impossible. In a small and primitive community of 
simple industries and habits, such as that Moses legis- 
lated for, substantial equality may be secured by al- 
loting to each family an equal share of the land and 
making it inalienable. Or, as among our rude ances- 
tors in Western Europe, or in such primitive society as 
the village communities of Russia and India, substan- 
tial equality may be secured by periodical allotment 
or cultivation in common. Or in sparse populations, 
such as the early New England colonies, substantial 



222 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

equality may be secured by giving to each family its 
town lot and its seed lot, holding the rest of the land 
as townland or common. But among a highly civilized 
and rapidly growing population, with changing cen- 
tres, with great cities and minute division of industry, 
and a complex system of production and exchange, 
such rude devices become ineffective and impossible. 

Must we therefore consent to inequality — must we 
therefore consent that some shall monopolize what is 
the common heritage of all ? Not at all. If two men 
find a diamond, they do not march to a lapidary to 
have it cut in two. If three sons inherit a ship, they 
do not proceed to saw her into three pieces ; nor yet 
do they agree that if this cannot be done equal divis- 
ion is impossible. Nor yet is there no other way to 
secure the rights of the owners of a railroad than by 
breaking up track, engines, cars and depots into as 
many separate bits as there are stockholders. And 
so it is not necessary, in order to secure equal rights 
to land, to make an equal division of land. All that is 
necessary to do is to collect rent {i.e., the annual value 
of land, irrespective of improvement and use) for the 
common benefit. 

Nor, to take rent for the common benefit, is it neces- 
sary that the State should actually take possession 
of the land and rent it out from year to year, or from 
term to term. It can be done in a much more simple 
and easy manner by concentrating taxation upon the 
value of land. All it is necessary to do is to abolish all 
other forms of taxation until the weight of taxation 
rests upon the value of land irrespective of improve- 
ments, and takes rent for the public benefit. 

Whether or no this would prove finally the best way 
of obtaining for the community the full return which 



THE FIRST GREAT REFORM. 223 

belongs to it, is liardly at this stage worth discussing. 
But a beginning can certainly be best and easiest made 
by this simple means of concentrating taxation upon 
land values. As the tax upon land values irrespective 
of improvements was increased, more and more of the 
rent which now goes to favored individuals would be 
taken for public benefit, until ultimately, if we could 
attain to ideal perfection, the selling values of even the 
most valuable land would entirely disappear, and tax- 
ation would become rental paid the State. 

In this simple way, without increasing governmental 
machinery, but, on the contrary, greatly simplifying 
it, we could make land common property. And in do- 
ing this we could abolish all other taxation, and still 
have a great and steadily increasing surplus — a grow- 
ing common fund, in the benefits of which all might 
share, and in the management of which there would 
be such a direct and general interest as to afford the 
strongest guarantees against misappropriation or waste. 
Under this system no one could afford to hold land he 
was not using, and land not in use would be thrown 
open to those who wished to use it, at once relieving 
the labor market and giving an enormous stimulus to 
production and improvement ; while land in use would 
be paid for according to its value, irrespective of the 
improvements the user might make. On these he 
would not be taxed. All that his labor could add to 
the common wealth, all that his prudence could save, 
would be his own, instead of, as now, subjecting him 
to fine. Thus would the sacred right of property be 
acknowledged by securing to each the reward of his 
exertion. 

Practically, then, the greatest, the most fundamental 
of all reforms, the reform w4iich will make all other re- 



224 



SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 



forms easier, and Vv^ithout which no other reform will 
avail, is to be reached by concentrating all taxation 
into a tax upon the value of land, and making that 
heavy enough to take as near as may be the whole 
ground rent * for common purposes. 

To those who have never studied the subject, it will 
seem ridiculous to propose as the greatest and most 
far-reaching of all reforms a mere fiscal change. But 
whoever has followed the train of thought through 
which in preceding chapters I have endeavored to lead, 
will see that in this simple proposition is involved the 
greatest of social revolutions — a revolution compared 
with w^iich that which destroyed ancient monarchy 
in France or that which destroyed chattel slavery in 
our Southern States were as nothing. 

In a book such as this, intended for the casual reader 
who lacks inclination to follow the close reasoning 
necessary to show the full relation of this seemingly 
simple reform to economic laws, I cannot exhibit its 
full force, but I may point to some of the more obvi- 
ous of its effects. 

To appropriate ground rent to public uses by means 
of taxation would permit the abolition of all the taxa- 
tion which now presses so heavily upon labor and capi- 
tal. This w^ould enormously increase the production 
of wealth by the ren^val of restrictions and by adding 
to the incentives to production. 

* I use the term ground rent because the proper economic term 
rent might not be understood by those who are in the habit of using 
it in its common sense, which applies to the income from buildings 
and improvements, as well as from land ; but in speaking of rent or 
ground rent, I of course mean the whole annual value of land, as well 
that part which now goes to leaseholders or tenants as that part which 
now goes to landowners. 



THE FIRST GREAT REFORM, 225 

It would at the same time enormously increase the 
production of wealth by throwing open natural oppor- 
tunities. It would utterly destroy land monopoly by 
making the holding of land unprofitable to any but the 
user. There would be no temptation to any one to 
hold land in expectation of future increase in its value 
when that increase was certain to be demanded in 
taxes. No one could afford to hold valuable land idle 
when the taxes upon it would be as heavy as they 
would be were it put to the fullest use. Thus specu- 
lation in land would be utterly destroyed, and land 
not in use would become free to those who wished to 
use it. 

The enormous increase in production which would 
result from thus throwing open the natural means and 
opportunities of production, while at the same time re- 
moving the taxation which now hampers, restricts and 
fines production, would enormously augment the an- 
nual fund from which all incomes are drawm. It would 
at the same time make the distribution of wealth much 
more equal. That great part of this fund which is 
now taken by the owners of land, not as a return for 
anything by which they add to production, but because 
they have appropriated as their own the natural means 
and opportunities of production, and which as material 
progress goes on, and the value of land rises, is con- 
stantly becoming larger and larger, would be virtually 
divided among all, by being utilized for common pur- 
poses. The removal of restrictions upon labor and the 
opening of natural opportunities to labor, would make 
labor free to employ itself. Labor, the producer of all 
wealth, could never become "a drug in the market" 
while desire for any form of wealth was unsatisfied. 
With the natural opportunities of employment thrown 
15 



226 SOCIAL PROBLEMS, 

open to all, the spectacle of willing men seeking vainly 
for employment could not be witnessed ; there could 
be no surplus of unemployed labor to beget that cut- 
throat competition of laborers for employment which 
crowds wages down to the cost of merely living. In- 
stead of the one-sided competition of workmen to find 
employment, employers would compete with each other 
to obtain workmen. There would be no need of com- 
binations to raise or maintain wages ; for wages, in- 
stead of tending to the lowest point at which laborers 
can live, would tend to the highest point which em- 
ployers can pay, and thus, instead of getting but a 
mere fraction of his earnings, the workman would get 
the full return of his labor, leaving to the skill, fore- 
sight, and capital of the employer those additional earn- 
ings that are justly due. 

The equalization in the distribution of wealth that 
would thus result would effect immense economies and 
greatly add to productive power. The cost of the idle- 
ness, pauperism and crime that spring from poverty 
would be saved to the community ; the increased mo- 
bility of labor, the increased intelligence of the masses, 
that would result from this equalized distribution of 
Avealth, the greater incentive to invention and to the 
use of improved processes that would result from the 
increase in wages, would enormously increase produc- 
tion. 

To abolish all taxes save a tax upon the value of land 
would at the same time greatly simplify the machinery 
and expenses of government, and greatly reduce gov- 
ernment expenses. An army of custom-house officers, 
and internal revenue officials, and license collectors and 
assessors, clerks, accountants, spies, detectives,, and 
government employes of every description, could be 



THE FIRST GREAT REFORM, 227 

dispensed with. The corrupting effect of indirect tax- 
ation would be taken out of our politics. The rings 
and combinations now interested in keeping up taxa- 
tion would cease to contribute money for the debauch- 
ing of voters and to beset the law-making power with 
their lobbyists. We should get rid of the fraud and 
false swearing, of the bribery and subornation which 
now attend the collection of so much of our public 
revenues. We should get rid of the demoralization that 
proceeds from laws which prohibit actions in them- 
selves harmless, punish men for crimes which the 
moral sense does not condemn, and offer a constant 
premium to evasion. "Land lies out of doors." It 
cannot be hid or carried off. Its value can be ascer- 
tained with greater ease and exactness than the value 
of anything else, and taxes upon that value can be col- 
lected with absolute certainty and at the minimum of 
expense. To rely upon land values for the whole pub- 
lic revenue would so simplify government, would so 
eliminate incentives to corruption, that we could safely 
assume as governmental functions the management of 
telegraphs and railroads, and safely apply the increas- 
ing surplus to securing such common benefits and pro- 
viding such public conveniences as advancing civiliza- 
tion may call for. 

And in thinking of what is possible in the way of the 
management of common concerns for the common 
benefit, not only is the great simplification of govern- 
ment which would result from the reform I have sug- 
gested to be considered, but the higher moral tone 
that would be given to social life by the equalization 
of conditions and the abolition of poverty. The greed 
of wealth, which makes it a business motto that every 
man is to be treated as though he were a rascal, and in- 



228 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

duces despair of getting in places of public trust men 
who will not abuse them for selfish ends, is but the re- 
flection of the fear of want. Men trample over each 
other from the frantic dread of being trampled upon, 
and the admiration with which even the unscrupulous 
money-getter is regarded springs from habits of 
thought engendered by the fierce struggle for exist- 
ence to which the most of us are obliged to give up 
our best energies. But when no one feared want, 
when every one felt assured of his ability to make an 
easy and independent living for himself and his family, 
that popular admiration which now spurs even the rich 
man still to add to his wealth would be given to other 
things than the getting of money. We should learn to 
regard the man who strove to get more than he could 
use, as a fool — as indeed he is. 

He must have eyes only for the mean and vile, who 
has mixed with men without realizing that selfishness 
and greed and vice and crime are largely the result of 
social conditions which bring out the bad qualities of 
human nature and stunt the good ; without realizing 
that there is even now among men patriotism and vir- 
tue enough to secure us the best possible management 
of public affairs if our social and political adjustments 
enable us to utilize those qualities. Who has not known 
poor men who might safely be trusted with untold mil- 
lions ? Who has not met with rich men who retained 
the most ardent sympathy with their fellows, the warm- 
est devotion to all that would benefit their kind ? Look 
to-day at our charities, hopeless of permanent good 
though they may be ! They at least show the existence 
of unselfish sympathies, capable, if rightly directed, of 
the largest results. 

It is no mere fiscal reform that I propose ; it is a con- 



THE FIRST GREAT REFORM. 229 

forming of the most important social adjustments to nat- 
ural laws. To those who have never given thought to the 
matter, it may seem irreverently presumptuous to say 
that it is the evident intent of the Creator that land 
values should be the subject of taxation ; that rent 
should be utilized for the benefit of the entire commu- 
nity. Yet to whoever does think of it, to say this will 
appear no more presumptuous than to say that the Cre- 
ator has intended men to walk on their feet, and not on 
their hands. Man, in his social relations, is as much 
included in the creative scheme as man in his phys- 
ical relations. Just as certainly as the fish was in- 
tended to swim in the water, and the bird to fiy through 
the air, and monkeys to live in trees, and moles to bur- 
row underground, was man intended to live with his 
fellows. He is by nature a social animal. And the 
creative scheme must embrace the life and development 
of society, as truly as it embraces the life and develop- 
ment of the individual. Our civilization cannot carry 
us beyond the domain of law. Railroads, telegraphs 
and labor-saving machinery are no more accidents than 
are flowers and trees. 

Man is driven by his instincts and needs to form so- 
ciety. Society, thus formed, has certain needs and func- 
tions for which revenue is required. Those needs and 
functions increase with social development, requiring 
a larger and larger revenue. Now, experience and 
analogy, if not the instinctive perceptions of the human 
mind, teach us that there is a natural way of satisfying 
every natural want. And if human society is included 
in nature, as it surely is, this must apply to social wants 
as well as to the wants of the individual, and there must 
be a natural or right method of taxation, as there is a 
natural or right method of walking- 



230 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

We know, beyond peradventure, that the natural or 
right way for a man to walk is on his feet, and not on 
his hands. We know this of a surety — because the feet 
are adapted to walking, while the hands are not ; be- 
cause in walking on the feet all the other organs of the 
body are free to perform their proper functions, while 
in walking on the hands they are not ; because a man 
can walk on his feet with ease, convenience and celeri- 
ty, while no amount of training will enable him to walk 
on his hands save awkwardly, slowly and painfully. 
In the same way we may know that the natural or right 
way of raising the revenues which are required by the 
needs of society is by the taxation of land values. The 
value of land is in its nature and relations adapted to 
purposes of taxation, just as tlie feet in their nature 
and relations are adapted to the purposes of walking. 
The value of land* only arises as in the integration of 
society the need for some public or common revenue 
begins to be felt. It increases as the development of 
society goes on, and as larger and larger revenues are 
therefore required. Taxation upon land values does 
not lessen the individual incentive to production and 
accumulation, as do other methods of taxation ; on the 
contrary, it leaves perfect freedom to productive forces, 
and prevents restrictions upon production from arising. 
It does not foster monopolies and cause unjust inequal- 
ities in the distribution of wealth, as do other taxes ; 
on the contrary, it has the effect of breaking down mo- 
nopoly and equalizing the distribution of wealth. It 

* Value, it must always be remembered, is a totally different thing 
from utility. From the confounding of these two different ideas much 
error and confusion arise. No matter how useful it may be, nothing 
has a value until some one is willing to give labor or the produce of 
labor for it. 



THE FIRST GREAT REFORM. 231 

can be collected with greater certainty and economy 
than any other tax ; it does not beget the evasion, cor- 
ruption, and dishonesty that flow from other taxes. In 
short, it conforms to every economic and moral require- 
ment. What can be more in accordance with justice 
than that the value of land, which is not created by in- 
dividual effort, but arises from the existence and growth 
of society, should be taken by society for social needs ? 

In trying, in a previous chapter, to imagine a world 
in which natural material and opportunities were free 
as air, I said that such a world as we find ourselves in 
is-best for men who will use the intelligence with which 
man has been gifted. So, evidently, it is. The very 
laws which cause social injustice to result in inequality, 
suffering and degradation are in their nature benefi- 
cent. All this evil is the wrong side of good that might 
be. 

Man is more than an animal. And the more we con- 
sider the constitution of this world in which we find 
ourselves, the more clearly we see that its constitution 
is such as to develop more than animal life. If the 
purpose for which this world existed were merely to 
enable animal man to eat, drink, and comfortably clothe 
and house himself for his little day, some such world 
as I have previously endeavored to imagine would be 
best. But the purpose of this world, so far at least as 
man is concerned, is evidently the development of moral 
and intellectual, even more than of animal, powers. 
Whether we consider man himself or his relations to 
nature external to him, the substantial truth of that 
bold declaration of the Hebrew scriptures, that man 
has been created in the image of God, forces itself 
upon the mind. 

If all the material things needed by man could be 



232 



SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 



produced equally well at all points on the earth's sur- 
face, it mi2:ht seem more convenient for man the ani- 
ma], but how would he have risen above the animal 
level ? As we see in the history of social develop- 
ment, commerce has been and is the great civilizer and 
educator. The seemingly infinite diversities in the 
capacity of different parts of the earth's surface lead 
to thai exchange of productions which is the most 
powerful agent in preventing isolation, in breaking 
down prejudice, in increasing knowledge and widening 
thought. These diversities of nature, which seemingly 
increase with our knowledge of nature's powers, like 
the diversities in the aptitudes of individuals and com- 
munities, which similarly increase with social develop- 
ment, call forth powers and give rise to pleasures 
which could never arise had man been placed, like an 
ox, in a boundless field of clover. The " international 
law of God " which we fight with our tariffs — so short- 
sighted are the selfish prejudices of men — is the law 
which stimulates mental and moral progress ; the law 
to which civilization is dne. 

And so, when we consider the phenomena of rent, it 
reveals to us one of those beautiful and beneficent 
adaptations, in which more than in anything else the 
human mind recognizes evidences of Mind infinitely 
greater, and catches glimpses of the Master Workman. 

This is the law of rent : As individuals come to- 
gether in communities, and society grows, integrating 
more and more its individual members, and making 
general interests and general conditions of more and 
more relative importance, there arises, over and above 
the value which individuals can create for themselves, 
a value which is created by the community as a whole, 
and which, attaching to land, becomes tangible, defi- 



THE FIRST GREAT REFORM. 233 

nite, and capable of computation and appropriation. 
As society grows, so grows this value, which springs 
from and represents in tangible form what society as a 
whole contributes to production as distinguished from 
what is contributed by individual exertion. By virtue 
of natural law in those aspects which it is the purpose 
of the science we call political economy to discover? 
as it is the purpose of the sciences which we call chem- 
istry and astronomy to discover other aspects of natural 
law — all social advance necessarily contributes to the 
increase of this common value ; to the growth of this 
common fund. 

Here is a provision made by natural law for the in- 
creasing needs of social growth ; here is an adaptation 
of nature by virtue of which the natural progress of 
society is a progress toward equality, not toward in- 
equality ; a centripetal force tending to unity, growing 
out of and ever balancing a centrifugal force tending 
to diversity. Here is a fund belonging to society as a 
whole from which, without the degradation of alms, 
private or public, provision can be made for the weak, 
the helpless, the aged ; from which provision can be 
made for the common -wants of all as a matter of com- 
mon right to each, and by tlie utilization of which soci- 
ety, as it advances, may pass, by natural methods and 
easy stages, from a rude association for purposes of 
defense and police, into a co-operative association, in 
which combined power guided by combined intelli- 
gence can give to each more than his own exertions 
multiplied many fold could produce. 

By making land private property, by permitting in- 
dividuals to appropriate this fund which nature plainly 
intended for the use of all, we throw the children's 
bread to the dogs of Greed and Lust ; we produce a 



234 



SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 



primary inequality which gives rise in every direction 
to other tendencies to inequality ; and from this per- 
version of tlie good gifts of the Creator, from this ig- 
noring and defying of his social laws, there arise in the 
very heart of our civilization those horrible and mon- 
strous things that betoken social putrefaction. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE AMERICAN FARMER. 



It is frequently asserted that no proposition for the 
recognition of common rights to land can become a 
practical question in the United States, because of the 
opposition of the farmers who own their own farms, 
and who constitute the great body of our population, 
wielding when they choose to exert it a dominating 
political power. 

That new ideas make their way more slowly among 
an agricultural population than among the population 
of cities and towns is true — though, I think, in less 
degree true of the United States than of any other 
country. But beyond this, it seems to me that those 
who look upon the small farmers of the United States 
as forming an impregnable bulwark to private property 
in land very much miscalculate. 

Even admitting, which I do not, that farmers could 
be relied upon to oppose measures fraught with great 
general benefits if seemingly opposed to their smaller 
personal interests, it is not true that such measures as 
I have suggested are opposed to the interests of the 
great body of farmers. On the contrary, these meas- 
ures would be as clearly to their advantage as lo the 



7'HE AMERICAN FARMER. 235 

advantage of wageworkers. The average farmer may 
at first start at the idea of virtually making land com- 
mon property, but given time for discussion and re- 
flection, and those who are already trying to persuade 
him that to put all taxation upon the value of land 
would be to put all taxation upon him, have as little 
chance of success as the slaveholders had of persuading 
their negroes that the Northern armies were bent on 
kidnapping and selling them in Cuba. The average 
farmer can read, w^rite, and cypher — and on matters 
connected with his own interests cyphers pretty closely. 
He is not out of the great currents of thought, though 
they may affect him more slowly, and he is anything 
but a contented peasant, ignorantly satisfied with things 
as they are, and impervious to ideas of change. Al- 
ready dissatisfied, he is becoming more so. His hard 
and barren life seems harder and more barren as con- 
trasted with the excitement and luxury of cities, of 
which he constantly reads even if he does not frequently 
see, and the great fortunes accumulated by men who 
do nothing to add to the stock of wealth arouse his 
sense of injustice. He is at least beginning to feel 
that he bears more than his fair share of -the burdens 
of society, and gets less than his fair share of its bene- 
fits ; and though the time for his awakening has not 
yet come, his thought, with the decadence of old po- 
litical issues, is more and more turning to economic 
and social questions. 

It is clear that the change in taxation which I pro- 
pose as the means whereby equal rights to the soil 
may be asserted and maintained, would be to the ad- 
vantage of farmers who are working land belonging 
to others, of those whose farms are virtually owned by 
mortgagees, and of those who are seeking farms. And 



236 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

not only do the farmers whose opposition is relied 
upon — those who own their own farms — form, as I 
shall hereafter show, but a decreasing minority of the 
agricultural vote, and a small and even more rapidly 
decreasing minority of the aggregate vote ; but the 
change would be so manifestly to the advantage of 
the smaller farmers who constitute the great body, 
that when they come to understand it they will favor 
instead of opposing it. The farmer who cultivates his 
own small farm with his own hands is a landowner, it 
is true, but he is in greater degree a laborer, and in 
his ownership of stock, improvem.ents, tools, etc., a 
capitalist. It is from his labor, aided by this capital, 
rather than from any advantage represented by the 
value of his land, that he derives his living. His main 
interest is that of a producer, not that of a landowner. 
There lived in Dublin, some years ago, a gentleman 
named Murphy — "Cozy" Murphy, they called him, 
for short, and because he was a very comfortable sort 
of a Murphy. Cozy Murphy owned land in Tipper- 
ary ; but as he had an agent in Tipperary to collect 
his rents and evict his tenants when they did not pay, 
he himself liyed in Dublin, as being the more comfort- 
able place. And he concluded, at length, that the 
most comfortable place in Dublin, in fact the most 
comfortable place in the whole world, was — in bed. 
So he went to bed and stayed there for nearly eight 
years ; not because he was at all ill, but because he 
liked it. He ate his dinners, and drank his wine, and 
smoked his cigars, and read, and played cards, and re- 
ceived visitors, and verified his agent's accounts, and 
drew checks — all in bed. After eight years' lying in 
bed, he grew tired of it, got up, dressed himself, and 
for some years went around like other people, and then 



TBE AMERICAN FARMER. 237 

died. But his family were just as well off as though 
he had never gone to bed-~-in fact, they were better 
off ; for while his income was not a whit diminished 
by his going to bed, his expenses were. 

This was a typical landowner — a landowner pure 
and simple. Now let the working farmer consider 
what would become of himself and family if he and his 
boys were to go to bed and stay there, and he will 
realize how much his interests as a laborer exceed his 
interests as a landowner. 

It requires no grasp of abstractions for the work- 
ing farmer to see that to abolish all taxation, save upon 
the value of land, would be really to his interest, no 
matter how it might affect larger landholders^ Let 
the working farmer consider how the weight of indi- 
rect taxation falls upon him without his having power 
to shift it off upon any one else ; how it adds to the 
price of nearly everything he has to buy, without add- 
ing to the price of what he has to sell ; how it com- 
pels him to contribute to the support of government 
in far greater proportion to what he possesses than it 
does those who are much richer, and he will see that 
by the substitution of direct for indirect taxation, he 
w^ould be largely the gainer. Let him consider further, 
and he will see that he would be still more largely the 
gainei: if direct taxation were confined to the value of 
land. The land of the working farmer is improved 
land, and usually the value of the improvements and 
of the stock used in cultivating it bear a very high 
proportion to the value of the bare land. Now, as all 
valuable land is not improved as is that of the working 
farmer, as there is much more of valuable land than of 
improved land, to substitute for the taxation now 
levied upcn improvements and stock, a tax upon the 



238 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

naked value of land, irrespective of improvements, 
would be manifestly to the advantage of the owners of 
improved land, and especially of small owners, the 
value of whose improvements bears a much greater 
ratio to the value of their land than is the case with 
larger owners ; and who, as one of the effects of treat- 
ing improvements as a proper subject of taxation, are 
taxed far more heavily, even upon the value of their 
land, than are larger owners. 

The working farmer has only to look about him to 
realize this. Near by his farm of eighty or one hun- 
dred and sixty acres he will find tracts of five hundred 
or a thousand, or, in some places, tens of thousands of 
acres, of equally valuable land, on which the improve- 
ments, stock, tools, and household effects are much 
less in proportion than on his own small farm, or which 
may be totally unimproved and unused. In the villages 
he will find acre, half-acre, and quarter-acre lots, unim- 
proved or slightly improved, which are more valuable 
than his whole farm. If he looks further, he will see 
tracts of mineral land, or land with other superior nat- 
ural advantages, having immense value, yet on which 
the taxable improvements amount to little or nothing ; 
while, when he looks to the great cities, he will find 
vacant lots, twenty-five by one hundred feet, worth 
more than a whole section of agricultural land such as 
his ; and as he goes toward their centres he will find 
most magnificent buildings less valuable than the 
ground on which they stand, and block after block 
where the land would sell for more per front foot than 
his whole farm. Manifestly, to put all taxes on the 
value of land would be to lessen relatively and abso- 
lutely the taxes the working farmer has to pay. 

So far from the effect of placing all taxes upon the 



THE AMERICAN FARMER. 239 

value of land being to the advantage of the towns at 
the expense of the agricultural districts, the very reverse 
of this is obviously true. The great increase of land 
values is in the cities, and with the present tendencies 
of growth this must continue to be the case. To place 
all taxes on the value of land would be to reduce the 
taxation of agricultural districts relatively to the taxa- 
tion of towns and cities. And this would be only just ; 
for it is not alone the presence of their own populations 
which gives value to the land of towns and cities, but 
the presence of the more scattered agricultural popu- 
lation, for whom they constitute industrial, commercial, 
and financial centres. 

While at first blush it may seem to the farmer that 
to abolish all taxes upon other things than the value of 
land would be to exempt the richer inhabitants of cities 
from taxation, and unduly to tax him, discussion and 
reflection will certainly show him that the reverse is 
the case. Personal property is not, never has been, 
and never can be, fairly taxed. The rich man always 
escapes more easily than the man who has but little ; 
the-,city, more easily than the country. Taxes which 
add to prices bear upon the inhabitants of sparsely 
settled districts with as much weight, and in many cases 
with much more weight, than upon the inhabitants of 
great cities. Taxes upon improvements manifestly 
fall more heavily upon the working farmer, a great 
part of the value of whose farm consists of the value of 
improvements, than upon the owners of valuable un- 
improved land, or upon those whose land, as that of 
cities, bears a higher relation in value to the improve- 
ments. 

The truth is, that the working farmer would be an 
immense gainer by the cliange. Where he would have 



240 SOCIAL PROBLEMS, 

to pay more taxes on the value of his Land, he would 
be released from the taxes now levied on his stock and 
improvements, and from all the indirect taxes that now 
weigh so heavily upon him. And as the eifect of tax- 
ing unimproved land as heavily as though it were im- 
proved would be to compel mere holders to sell, and to 
destroy mere speculative values, the farmer in sparsely 
settled districts would have little or no taxes to pay. 
It would not be until equally good land all about him 
was in use, and he had all the advantages of a well- 
settled neighborhood, that his taxes would be more 
than nominal. 

What the farmer who owns his own farm would lose 
would be the selling value of his land, but its usefulness 
to him would be as great as before — greater than before, 
in fact, as he would get larger returns from his labor 
upon it ; and as the selling value of other land would 
be similarly affected, this loss would not make it harder 
for him to get another farm if he wished to move, while 
it would be easier for him to settle his children or to 
get more land if he could advantageously cultivate 
more. The loss would be nominal ; the gain would be 
real. It is better for the small farmer, and especially 
for the small farmer with a growing family, that labor 
should be high than that land should be high. Para- 
doxical as it may appear, small landowners do not profit 
by the rise in the value of land. On the contrary they 
are extinguished. But before speaking of this let me 
show how much misapprehension there is in the as- 
sumption that the small independent farmers constitute, 
and will continue to constitute, the majority of the 
American people. 

Agriculture is the primitive occupation ; the farmer 
is the American pioneer ; and even in those cases, 



THE AMERICAN FARMER. 241 

comparatively unimportant, where settlement is begun 
in the search for the precious metals, it does not 
become permanent until agriculture in some of its 
branches takes root. But as population increases and 
industrial development goes on, the relative importance 
of agriculture diminishes. That the non-agricultural 
population of the United States is steadily and rapidly 
gaining on the agricultural population is of course ob- 
vious. According to the census report the urban pop- 
ulation of the United States was in 1790 but -^.2, per 
cent, of the whole population, while in 1880 it had risen 
to 22.5 per cent.''^ Agriculture is yet the largest occu- 
pation, but in the aggregate other occupations much 
exceed it. 

According to the census, which, unsatisfactory as 
it is, is yet the only authority we have, the num- 
ber of persons engaged in agriculture in 1880 was 
7,670,493 out of 17,392,099 returned as engaged in gain- 
ful occupations of all kinds. Or, if we take the num- 
ber of adult males as a better comparison of political 
power, we may find, with a little figuring, that the re- 
turns show 6,491,116 males of sixteen years and over 
engaged in agriculture, against 7,422,639 engaged in 
other occupations. According to these figures the ag- 
ricultural vote is already in a clear minority in the 
United States, while the preponderance of the non-ag- 



* It is an illustration of the carelessness with wliich the census re- 
ports have been shovelled together, that although the Compendium 
(Table V.) gives the urban population, no information is given as to 
what is meant by urban population. The only clue given the inquirer 
is that the urban population is stated to be contained in 286 cities. 
Following up this clue through other tables, I infer that the population 
of towns and cities of 8, 000 people and over are meant. 
16 



242 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

ricultural vote, already great, is steadily and rapidly 
increasing.* 

But while the agricultural population of the United 
States is thus already in a minority, the men who own 
their own farms are already in a minority in the ag- 
ricultural population. According to the census the 
number of farms and plantations in the United States 
in 1880 was 4,008,907. The number of tenant farmers, 
paying money rents or share rents, is given by one 
of the census bulletins at 1,024,601. This would leave 
but 2,984,306 nominal owners of farms, out of the 
7,679,493 persons employed in agriculture. The real 
owners of their farms must be greatly less even than 
this. The most common form of agricultural tenancy 
in the United States is not that of money or share rent, 
but" of mortgage. What proportion of American farms 
occupied by their nominal owners are under mortgage, 
we can only guess. But there can be little doubt that 
the number of mortgaged farms must largely exceed 
the number of rented farms, and it may not be too high 
an estimate to put the number of mortgaged farms at 
one-half the number of unrented ones.f However this 
may be, it is certain that the farmers who really own 



* Comparing the returns as to occupations for 1870 with 1880, it will 
be seen that while during the last decade the increase of persons en- 
gaged in agriculture has been only 29.5 per cent, in personal and pro- 
fessional services the increase has been 51.7 per cent, in trade and 
transportation 51.9 per cent., and in manufacturing, mechanical, and 
mining industries 41. 7 per cent 

f Could the facts be definitely ascertained, I have not the least doubt 
that they would show that at least fifty per cent, of the small farm own- 
erships in the older States are merely nominal. That that number, at 
least, of the small farmers in those States are so deeply in debt, so 
covered by mortgages, that their supreme effort is to pay the constantly 



THE AMERICAN FARMER. 243 

their farms are but a minority of farmers, and a small 
minority of those engaged in agriculture. 

Further than this, all the tendencies of the time are 
to the extinction of the typical American farmer — the 
man who cultivates his own acres with his own hands. 
This movement has only recently begun, but it is going 
on, and must go on, under present conditions, with 
increasing rapidity. The remarkable increase in the 
large farms and diminution in the small ones, shown by 
the analysis of the census figures w^hich will be found 

accruing interest, that a roof may be kept over the heads of the family 
— an effort that can have but the one ending. 

In the newer States is found a similar condition of things. The only 
difference is, that there the small farmer is usually compelled to com- 
mence with what, to him, is a mountain of debt. He must obtain his 
land upon deferred payments, drawing interest, and can obtain no title 
until those deferred payments, with the interest, are paid in full. He 
must also obtain his farm implements on part credit, with interest, for 
which he mortgages his crops. Credit must help him to his farm stock, 
his hovel, his seed, his food, his clothing. With this load of debt must 
the small farmer in the newer States commence, if he is not a capitalist, 
or he cannot even make a beginning. With such a commencement the 
common ending is not long in being found. 

In travelling through those sections, one of the most notable things 
that meets the attention of the observer is the great number of publica- 
tions, ever)rwhere met with, devoted exclusively to the advertising of 
small farm holdings, more or less improved, that are for sale. One is 
almost forced to the conclusion that the entire class of small farmers 
are compelled, from some cause, to find the best and quickest market 
that can be obtained for all that they possess. 

The entire agricultural regions of our country are crowded with loan 
agents, representing capital from all the great money centres of the 
world, who are making loans and taking mortgages upon the farms to 
an amount that, in aggregate, appears to be almost beyond calculation. 
In this movement the local capitalists, lawyers, and traders appear as 
active coworkers. — Land a^id Labor in the United States, by Wm. God- 
win Moody, Nev/ York, 1883, p. 85. 



244 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

in the Appendix, is but evidence of the fact — too notori- 
ous to need the proof of jfigures — that the tendency to 
concentration, which in so many other branches of in- 
dustry has substituted the factory for self-employing 
workmen, has reached agriculture. One invention 
after another has already given the large farmer a 
crushing advantage over the small farmer, and inven- 
tion is still going on.* And it is not merely in the 
making of his crops, but in their transportation and 
marketing, and in the purchase of his supplies, that 
the large producer in agriculture gains an advantage 
over the small one. To talk, as some do, about the 
bonanza farms breaking up in a little while into small 
homesteads, is as foolish as to talk of the great shoe 
factory giving way again to journeymen shoemakers 
with their lapstones and awls. The bonanza farm and 
the great wire-fenced stock ranch have come to stay 
while present conditions last. If they show themselves 
first on new land, it is because there is on new land 
the greatest freedom of development, but the tendency 
exists wherever modern industrial influences are felt, 
and is showing itself in the British Isles as well as in 
our older States. f 

This tendency means the extirpation of the typical 

* One of the most important agricultural inventions yet made is just 
announced in the long-sought cotton-picker. If this machine will do 
what is said to have been already demonstrated, it must revolutionize 
the industry of the cotton States, and pi^oduce as far-reaching social and 
political effects as the invention of the cotton-gin, which revived and 
extended negro slavery in the United States, and made it an aggressive 
political power. 

f The persistence of small properties in some parts of the continent 
of Europe is due, I take it, to the prevalence of habits differing from 
those of the people of English speech, and to the fact that modern ten- 
dencies are not yet felt there as strongly. 



THE AMERICAN FARMER. 245 

American farmer, who with his own hands and the aid 
of his boys cultivates his own small farm. When a 
Brooklyn lawyer or Boston banker can take a run in a 
palace car out to the new Northwest ; buy some sec- 
tions of land ; contract for having it broken up, seeded, 
reaped, and threshed ; leave on it a superintendent, and 
make a profit on his first year's crop of from six to ten 
thousand dollars a section, v/hat chance has the em- 
igrant farmer of the old type, who comes toiling along 
in the wagon which contains his wife and children, and 
the few traps that with his team constitute his entire 
capital ? When English and American capitalists can 
run miles of barbed wire fence, and stock the great 
enclosure with large herds of cattle, which can be 
tended, carried to market, and sold at the minimum of 
expense and maximum of profit, what chance has the 
man who would start stock-raising with a few cows ? 

From the typical American farmer of the era now 
beginning to pass away, two types are differentiating 
— the capitalist farmer and the farm-laborer. The 
former does not work with his own hands, but with 
the hands of other men. He passes but a portion ,of 
his time, in some cases hardly any of it, upon the land 
he cultivates. His home is in a large town or great city, 
and he is, perhaps, a banker and speculator as well as 
a farmer. The latter is proletarian, a nomad — part of 
the year a laborer and part of the year a tramp, mi-' 
grating from farm to farm and from place to place, 
without family or home or any of the influences and 
responsibilities that develop manly character. If our 
treatment of land continues as now, some of our small 
independent farmers will tend toward one of these ex- 
tremes, and many more will tend toward the other. 
But besides the tendency to production on a large 



246 SOCIA L PR OBLEMS. 

scale, which is operating to extirpate the small inde- 
pendent farmer, there is, in the rise of land values, 
another powerful tendency operating in the same di- 
rection. 

At the looting of the Summer Palace at Pekin by 
the allied forces in i860, some valuable jewels were 
obtained by private soldiers. How long did they re- 
main in such possession ? If a Duke of Brunswick 
were to distribute his hoard of diamonds among the 
poor, how long would the poor continue to hold them ? 
The. peasants of Ireland and the costermongers of 
London have their donkeys, which are worth" only a 
few shillings. But if by any combination of circum- 
stances the donkey became as valuable as a blooded 
horse, no peasant or costermonger would be found 
driving a donkey. Where chickens are cheap, the 
common people eat them ; where they are dear, they 
are to be found only on the tables of the rich. So it 
is with land. As it becomes valuable it must gravitate 
from the hands of those who work for a living into the 
possession of the rich. 

What has caused the extreme concentration of land 
ownership in England is not so much the conversion 
of the feudal tenures into fee simple, the spoliation of 
the religious houses, and the enclosure of the com- 
mons, as this effect of the rise in the value of land. 
The small estates, of which there were many in Eng- 
land two centuries and even a century ago,* have be- 
come parts of large estates mainly by purchase. They 
gravitated to the possession of the rich, just as dia- 
monds, or valuable paintings, or fine horses, gravitate 
to the possession of the rich. 

* According to Macaulay, at the accession of James II., in 1685, the 
majority of English farmers were owners of the land they cultivated. 



7'HE AMERICAN FARMER. 247 

So long as the masses are fools enough to permit 
private property in land, it is rightly esteemed the 
most secure possession. It cannot be burned, or de- 
stroyed by any accident ; it cannot be carried off ; it 
tends constantly to increase in value with the growth 
of population and improvement in the arts. Its pos- 
session being a visible sign of secure wealth, and put- 
ting its owner, as competition becomes sharp, in the 
position of a lord or god to the human creatures who 
have no legal rights to this planet, carries with it so- 
cial consideration and deference. For these reasons 
land commands a higher price in proportion to the 
income it yields than anything else, and the man to 
whom immediate income is of more importance than a 
secure investment finds it cheaper to rent land than to 
buy it. 

Thus, as land grew in value in England, the small 
owners were not merely tempted or compelled by the 
vicissitudes of life to sell their land, but it became 
more profitable to them to sell it than to hold it, as 
they could hire land cheaper than they could hire cap- 
ital. By selling and then renting, the English farmer, 
thus converted from a landowner into a tenant, ac- 
quired, for a time at least, the use of more land and 
more capital, and the ownership of land thus gravi- 
tated from the hands of those whose prime object is to 
get a living into the hands of those whose prime ob- 
ject is a secure investment. 

This process must go on in the United States as 
land rises in value. We may observe it now. It is in 
the newer parts of our growing cities that we find 
people of moderate means living in their own houses. 
Where land is more valuable, w^e find such people liv- 
ing in rented houses. In such cities, block after block 



248 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

is put up and sold, generally under mortgage, to fam- 
ilies who thus endeavor to secure a home of their own. 
But I think it is the general experience, that as years 
pass by, and land acquires a greater value, these 
houses and lots pass from the nominal ownership of 
dwellers into the possession of landlords, and are oc- 
cupied by tenants. So, in the agricultural districts, it 
is where land has increased little if anything in value 
that we find homesteads which have been long in the 
possession of the same family of working farmers. A 
general officer of one of the great trunk railroad lines 
told me that his attention had been called to the su- 
preme importance of the land question by the great 
westward emigration of farmers, which, as the result 
of extensive inquiries, he found due to the rise of land 
values. As land rises in value the working farmer 
finds it more and more difficult for his boys to get 
farms of their own, while the price for which he can 
sell will give him a considerably larger tract of land 
where land is cheaper ; or he is tempted or forced to 
mortgage, and the mortgage eats and eats until it eats 
him out, or until he concludes that the wisest thing he 
can do is to realize the difference between the mort- 
gage and the selling value of his farm and emigrate 
west. And in many cases he commences again under 
the load of a mortgage ; for as settlement is now going, 
very much of the land sold to settlers by railroad com- 
panies and speculators is sold upon mortgage. And 
what is the usual result may be inferred from such an- 
nouncements as those placarded in the Union depot at 
Council Bluffs, offering thousands of improved farms 
for sale on liberal terms as to payment. One man 
buys upon mortgage, fails in his payments, or gets dis- 
gusted, and moves on, and the farm he has improved 



THE AMERICAN FARMER. 249 

is sold to another man upon mortgage. Generally 
speaking, the ultimate result is, that the mortgagee, 
not the mortgagor, becomes the full owner. Cultiva- 
tion under mortgage is, in truth, the transitional form 
between cultivation by the small owner and cultivation 
by the large owner or by tenant. 

The fact is, that the typical American farmer, the 
cultivator of a small farm of which he is the owner, is 
the product of conditions under which labor is dear and 
land is cheap. As these conditions change, labor be- 
coming cheap and land becoming dear, he must pass 
away as he has passed away in England. 

It has already become impossible in our older States 
for a man starting with nothing to become by his labor 
the owner of a farm. As the public domain disappears 
this will become impossible all over the United States. 
And as in the accidents and mutations of life the small 
owners are shaken from their holdings, or find it im- 
possible to compete with the grand culture of capital- 
istic farming, they will not be able to recover, and 
must swell the mass of. tenants and laborers. Thus 
the concentration of land ownership is proceeding, and 
must proceed, if private property in land be continued. 
So far from it being to the interest of the working farm- 
er to defend private property in land, its continued 
recognition means that his children, if not himself, 
shall lose all right whatever in their native soil ; shall 
sink from the condition of free men to that of serfs. 



250 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

CITY AND COUNTRY. 

Cobbett compared London, even in his day, to a 
great wen growing upon the fair face of England. 
There is truth in such comparison. Nothing more 
clearly shows the unhealthiness of present social ten- 
dencies than the steadily increasing concentration of 
population in great cities. There are about 12,000 
head of beef cattle killed weekly in the shambles of 
New York, while, exclusive of what goes through for 
export, there are about 2, 100 beef carcasses per week 
brought in refrigerator cars from Chicago. Consider 
w^hat this single item in the food supply of a great city 
suggests as to the elements of fertility, which, instead of 
being returned to the soil from which they come, are 
swept out through the sewers of our great cities. The 
reverse of this is the destructive character of our agri- 
culture, which is year by year decreasing the produc- 
tiveness of our soil, and virtually lessening the area 
of land available for the support of our increasing 
millions. 

In all the aspects of human life similar effects are 
being produced. The vast populations of these great 
cities are utterly divorced from all the genial influences 
of nature. The great mass of them never, from year's 
end to year's end, press foot upon mother earth, or 
pluck a wild flower, or hear the tinkle of brooks, the 
rustle of grain, or the murmur of leaves as the light 
breeze comes through the woods. All the sweet and 
joyous influences of nature are shut out from them. 



CITY AND COUNTRY, 251 

Her sounds are drowned by the roar of the streets and 
the clatter of the people in the next room, or the next 
tenement ; her sights shut out by tall buildings. Sun 
and moon rise and set, and in solemn procession the 
constellations move across the sky, but these impris- 
oned multitudes behold them only as might a man in a 
deep quarry. The white snow falls in winter only to 
become dirty slush on the pavements, and as the sun 
sinks in summer a worse than noonday heat is re- 
fracted from masses of brick and stone. Wisely have 
the authorities of Philadelphia labelled with its name 
every tree in their squares ; for how else shall the chil- 
dren growing up in such cities know one tree from 
another ? how shall they even know grass from clover ? 

This life of great cities is not the natural life of man. 
He must, under such conditions, deteriorate, physi- 
cally, mentally, morally. Yet the evil does not end 
here. This is only one side of it. This unnatural life 
of the great cities means an equally unnatural life in 
the country. Just as the wen or tumor, drawing the 
wholesome juices of the body into its poisonous vortex, 
impoverishes all other parts of the frame, so does the 
crowding of human beings into great cities impoverish 
human life in the country. 

Man is a gregarious animal. He cannot live by 
bread alone. If he suffers in body, mind, and soul from 
being crowded into too close contact with his fellows, 
so also does he suffer from being separated too far 
from them. The beauty and the grandeur of nature 
pall upon roan where other men are not to be met ; her 
infinite diversity becomes monotonous where there is 
not human companionship ; his physical comforts are 
poor and icant, his nobler powers languish ; all that 
makes him higher than the animal suffers for want of 



252 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

the stimulus that comes from the contact of man witli 
man. Consider the barrenness of the isolated farmer's 
life — the dull round of work and sleep, in which so 
much of it passes. Consider, what is still worse, the 
monotonous existence to which his wife is condemned ; 
its lack of recreation and excitement, and of gratifica- 
tions of taste, and of the sense of harmony and beauty ; 
its steady drag of cares and toils that make women 
worn and wrinkled when they should be in their bloom. 
Even the discomforts and evils of the crowded tene- 
ment-houses are not worse than the discomforts and 
evils of such a life. Yet as the cities grow, unwhole- 
somely crowding people together till they are packed 
in tiers, family above family, so are they unwhole- 
somely separated in the country. The tendency, every- 
where that this process of urban concentration is going 
on, is to make the life of the country poor and hard, 
and to rob it of the social stimulus and social gratifica- 
tions that are so necessary to human beings. The old 
healthy social life of village and townland is every- 
where disappearing. In England, Scotland, and Ire- 
land the thinning out of population in the agricultural 
districts is as marked as is its concentration in cities 
and large towns. In Ireland, as you ride along the 
roads, your car-driver, if he be an old man, will point 
out to you spot after spot, which, when he was a boy, 
were the sites of populous hamlets, echoing in the 
summer evenings with the laughter of children and the 
joyous sports of young people, but now utterly deso- 
late, showing, as the only evidences of human occupa- 
tion, the isolated cabins of miserable herds. In Scot- 
land, where in such cities as Glasgow, human beings 
are so crowded together that two-thirds of the. families 
live in a single room, where if you go through the 



CITY AND COUNTRY. 253 

streets of a Saturday night, you will think, if you have 
ever seen the Terra del Fuegans, that these poor crea- 
tures might envy them, there are wide tracts once pop- 
ulous now given up to cattle, to grouse, and to deer 
— glens that once sent out their thousand fighting 
men now tenanted by a couple of gamekeepers. So 
across the Tweed, while London, Liverpool, Leeds, 
Manchester, and Nottingham have grown, the village 
life of " merrie England " is all but extinct. Two-thirds 
of the entire population is crowded into cities. Clus- 
tering hamlets, such as those through which, according 
to tradition, Shakespeare and his comrades rollicked, 
have disappeared ; village greens where stood the May- 
pole, and the clothyard arrow flew from the longbow 
to the bull's eye of the butt, are plowed under or en- 
closed by the walls of some lordly demesne ; while here 
and there stand mementoes alike of a bygone faith and 
a departed population, in great churches or their re- 
mains — churches such as that now could never be filled 
unless the congregations were brought from town by 
railroad excursion trains. 

So in the agricultural districts of our older States 
the same tendency may be beheld ; but it is in the 
newer States that its fullest expression is to be found 
— in ranches measured by square miles, where half- 
savage cowboys, whose social life is confined to the ex- 
citement of the " round-up " or a periodical "drunk " 
in a railroad towm ; and in bonanza farms, where in the 
spring the eye wearies of seas of waving grain before 
resting on a single home — farms where the cultivators 
are lodged in barracks, and only the superintendent en- 
joys the luxury of a wife. 

That present tendencies are hurrying modern society 
toward inevitable catastrophe, is apparent from the 



254 SOCIAL PROBLEAIS. . 

constantly increasing concentration of population in 
great cities, if in nothing else. A century ago New 
York and its suburbs contained about 25,000 souls ; 
now they contain over 2,000,000. The same growth 
for another century would put here a population of 
160,000,000. Such a city is impossible. But what 
shall we say of the cities of ten and twenty millions, 
that, if present tendencies continue, children now born 
shall see ? 

On this, however, I will not dwell. I merely wish 
to call attention to the fact that this concentration of 
population impoverishes social life at the extremities, 
as well as poisons it at the centre ; that it is as injuri- 
ous to the farmer as it is to the inhabitant of the city 
slum. 

This unnatural distribution of population, like that 
unnatural distribution of wealth which gives one man 
hundreds of millions and makes other men tramps, is 
the result of the action of the new industrial forces in 
social conditions not adapted to them. It springs pri- 
marily from our treatment of land as private property, 
and secondarily from our neglect to assume social 
functions which material progress forces upon us. Its 
causes removed, there would ensue a natural distri- 
bution of population which would give every one breath- 
ing space and neighborhood. 

It is in this that would be the great gain of the 
farmer in the measures I have proposed. With the 
resumption of common rights to the soil, the over- 
crowded population of the cities would spread, the 
scattered population of the country would grow 
denser. When no individual could profit by advance 
in the value of land, when no one need fear that his 
children could be jostled out of their natural rights, 



\ 



CITY AND COUNTRY. 255 

no one would want more land than he could profitably 
use. Instead of scraggy, half-cultivated farms, sepa- 
rated by great tracts lying idle, homesteads would 
come close to each other. Emigrants would not toil 
through unused acres, nor grain be hauled for thou- 
sands of miles past half-tilled land. The use of ma- 
chinery would not be abandoned : where culture on a 
large scale secured economies it would still go on ; 
but with the breaking up of monopolies, the rise in 
wages and the better distribution of wealth, industry 
of this kind would assume the co-operative form. Ag- 
riculture would cease to be destructive, and would 
become more intense, obtaining more from the soil 
and returning what it borrowed. Closer settlement 
would give rise to economies of all kinds ; labor would 
be far more productive, and rural life would partake 
of the conveniences, recreations, and stimulations now 
only to be obtained by the favored classes in large 
towns. The monopoly of land broken up, it seems to 
me that rural life would tend to revert to the primitive 
type of the village surrounded by cultivated fields, 
with its*common pasturage and woodlands. But how- 
ever this may be, the working farmer would participate 
fully in all the enormous economies and all the immense 
gains which society can secure by the substitution of 
orderly co-operation for the anarchy of reckless, greedy 
scrambling. 

That the masses now festering in the tenement- 
houses of our cities, under conditions which breed 
disease and death, and vice and crime, should each 
family have its healthful home, set in its garden ; that 
the workina: farmer should be able to make a livin"; 
with a daily average of two or three hours' Avork, 
which more resembled healthy recreation than toil ; 



256 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

that his home should be replete with all the conve- 
niences yet esteemed luxuries ; that it should be sup- 
plied with light and heat, and power if needed, and 
connected with those of his neighbors by the tele- 
phone ; that his family should be free to libraries, and 
lectures, and scientific apparatus, and instruction ; that 
they should be able to visit the theatre, or concert, or 
opera, as often as they cared to, and occasionally to make 
trips to other parts of the country or to Europe ; that, 
in short, not merely the successful man, the one in a 
thousand, but the man of ordinary parts and ordinary 
foresight and prudence, should enjoy all that advanc- 
ing civilization can bring to elevate and expand hu- 
man life, seems, in the light of existing facts, as wild a 
dream as ever entered the brain of hasheesh-eater. 
Yet the powers already within the grasp of man make 
it easily possible. 

In our mad scramble to get on top of one another, 
how little do we take of the good things that boun- 
tiful nature offers -us. Consider this fact : To the 
majority of people in such countries as England, and 
even largely in the United States, fruit is a luxury. 
Yet mother earth is not niggard of her fruit. If we 
chose to have it so, every road might be lined with 
fruit-trees. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

CONCLUSION. 



Here, it seems to me, is the gist and meaning of the 
great social problems of our time : More is given to us 
than to any people at any time before ; and, therefore, 
more is required of us. We have made, and still are 



CONCLUSION. 257 

making, enormous advances on material lines. It is 
necessary that we commensurately advance on moral 
lines. Civilization, as it progresses, requires a higher 
conscience, a keener sense of justice, a warmer brother- 
hood, a wider, loftier, truer public spirit. Failing 
these, civilization must pass into destruction. It can- 
not be maintained on the ethics of savagery. For civ- 
ilization knits men more and more closely together, 
and constantly tends to subordinate the individual 
to the whole, and to make more and more important 
social conditions. 

The social and political problems that confront us 
are darker than they realize who have not given thought 
to them ; yet their solution is a mere matter of the 
proper adjustment of social forces. Man masters ma- 
terial nature by studying her laws, and in conditions 
and powers that seemed most forbidding has already 
found his richest storehouses and most powerful ser- 
vants. Although we have but begun to systematize 
our knowledge of physical nature, it is evident she will 
refuse us no desire if we but seek its gratification in 
accordance with her laws. 

And that faculty of adapting means to ends which 
has enabled man to convert the once impassable ocean 
into his highway, to transport iiimself with a speed 
which leaves the swallow behind, to annihilate space 
in the communication of his thoughts, to convert the 
rocks into warmth and light and power and material 
for a thousand uses, to weigh the stars and analyze the 
sun, to make ice under the equator, and bid flowers 
bloom in northern winters, will also, if he will use it, 
enable him to overcome social difficulties and avoid 
social dangers. The domain of law is not confined to 
physical nature. It just as certainly embraces the men- 
17 



258 SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

tal and moral universe, and social growth and social 
life have their laws as fixed as those of matter and of 
motion. Would we make social life healthy and happy, 
we must discover those laws, and seek our ends in ac- 
cordance with them. 

I ask no one who may read this book to accept my 
views. I ask him to think for himself. 

Whoever, laying aside prejudice and self-interest, 
will honestly and carefully make up his own mind as 
to the causes and the cure of the social evils that are 
so apparent, does, in that, the most important thing in 
his power toward their removal. This primary obliga- 
tion devolves upon us individually, as citizens and as 
men. Whatever else we may be able to do, this must 
come first. For " if the blind lead the blind, they both 
shall fall into the ditch." 

Social reform is not to be secured by noise and 
shouting ; by complaints and denunciation ; by the for- 
mation of parties, or the making of revolutions ; but by 
the awakening of thought and the progress of ideas. 
Until there be correct thought, there cannot be right 
action ; and when there is correct thought, right action 
will follow. Power is always in the hands of the masses 
of men. What oppresses the masses is their own ig- 
norance, their own short-sighted selfishness. 

The great work of the present for every man, and 
every organization of men, v/ho would improve social 
conditions, is the work of education — the propagation 
of ideas. It is only as it aids this that anything else 
can avail. And in this work every one who can think 
may aid — first by forming clear ideas himself, and then 
by endeavoring to arouse the thought of those with, 
whom he comes in contact. 

Many there are too depressed, too embruted with 



CONCLUSION. 259 

hard toil and the struggle for animal existence, to think 
for themselves. Therefore the obligation devolves 
with all the more force on those who can. If thinking 
men are few, they are for that reason all the more 
Tx;v/erful. Let no man imagine that he has no influ- 
ence. Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be 
jjlaced, the man who thinks becomes a light and a 
power. That for every idle word men may speak they 
shall give an account at the day of judgment, seems a 
hard saying. But what more clear than that the theory 
of the persistence of force, which teaches us that every 
movement continues to act and react, must apply as 
well to the universe of mind as to that of matter. 
Whoever becomes imbued with a noble idea kindles a 
flame from which other torches are lit, and influences 
tho sewith whom he comes in contact, be they few or 
many. How far that influence, thus perpetuated, may 
extend, it is not given to him here to see. But it may 
be that the Lord of the Vineyard will know. 

As I said in the first of these papers, the progress of 
civilization necessitates the giving of greater and 
greater attention and intelligence to public affairs. 
And for this reason I am convinced that we make a 
great mistake in depriving one sex of voice in public 
matters, and that we could in no way so increase the 
attention, the intelligence, and the devotion which may 
be brought to the solution of social problems as by en- 
franchising our women. Even if in a ruder state of 
society the intelligence of one sex suffices for the man- 
agement of common interests, the vastly more intri- 
cate, more delicate and more important questions which 
the progress of civilization makes of public moment, 
require the intelligence of women as of men, and that 
we never can obtain until we interest them in public 



26o SOCIAL PROBLEMS. 

affairs. And I have come to believe that very much 
of the inattention, the flippancy, the want of con- 
science, which we see manifested in regard to pubhc 
matters of the greatest moment, arises from the fact 
that we debar our women from taking their proper 
part in these matters. Nothing will fully interest men 
unless it also interests women. There are those who 
say that women are less intelligent than men ; but who 
will say that they are less influential ? 

And I am firmly convinced, as I have already said, 
that to effect any great social improvement, it is sym- 
pathy rather than self-interest, the sense of duty rather 
than the desire for self-advancement, that must be ap- 
pealed to. Envy is akin to admiration, and it is the 
admiration which the rich and powerful excite which 
secures the perpetuation of aristocracies. Where ten- 
penny Jack looks with contempt upon ninepenny Joe, 
the social injustice which makes the masses of the peo- 
ple hewers of wood and drawers of Avater for a privi- 
leged few, has the strongest bulwarks. It is told of a 
certain Florentine agitator that when he had received 
a new pair of boots, he concluded that all popular griev- 
ances were satisfied. How often do we see this story 
illustrated anew in working-men's movements and trade- 
imion struggles ? This is the weakness of all movements 
that appeal only to self-interest. 

And as man is so constituted that it is utterly impos- 
sible for him to attain happiness save by seeking the 
happiness of others, so does it seem to be of the nature 
of things that individuals and classes can obtain their 
own just rights only by struggling for the right of 
others. To illustrate : When workmen in any trade 
form a trades-union, they gain, by subordinating the in- 
dividual interests of each to the common interests of 



C ONCL US I ON. 26 1 

all, the power of making better terms with employers. 
But this power goes only a little way when the combi- 
nation of the trades-union is met and checked by the 
pressure for employment of those outside its limits. 
No combination of workmen can raise their own wages 
much above the level of ordinary wages. The attempt 
to do so is like the attempt to bail out a boat without 
stopping up the seams. For this reason, it is necessary, 
if workmen would accomplish anything real and perma- 
nent for themselves, not merely that each trade should 
seek the common interests of all trades, but that skilled 
workmen should address themselves to those general 
measures which will improve the condition of unskilled 
workmen. Those who are most to be considered, those 
for whose help the struggle must be made, if labor is to 
be enfranchised, and social justice won, are those least 
able to help or struggle for themselves, those who have 
no advantage of property or skill or intelligence, — the 
men and women who are at the very bottom of the so- 
cial scale. In securing the equal rights of these we 
shall secure the equal rights of all. 

Hence it is, as Mazzini said, that it is around the 
standard of duty rather than around the standard of 
self-interest that men must rally to win the rights of 
man. And herein may we see the deep philosophy of 
Flim who bade men love their neighbors as themselves. 

In that spirit, and in no other, is the power to solve 
social problems and carry civilization onward. 



APPENDIX. 

The U. S. Census Report on the Size of Farms. 

The reference on page 49 to the evident incorrect- 
ness of the statement of the Census Report as to the 
decrease in the average size of farms in the United 
States, led, when originally published in Frank Leslie s 
Illustrated Newspaper^ to the following controversy, 
which is given as there printed : 

SUPERINTENDENT WALKER's EXPLANATION. 

Boston, May 10, 1883. 
To the Editor of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper : 

Sir — In Mr. Henry George's fifth paper on the 
'^ Problems of the Time" he declares that the state- 
ment of the Census Bureau to the effect that the aver- 
age size of farms is decreasing in the United States, is 
inconsistent not only with " facts obvious all over the 
United States," but with " the returns furnished by the 
Census Bureau itself ; " and at a later point, after citing 
the Census Statistics of tlie number of farms of certain 
classes, as to size, in 1870, and again in 1880, he says : 
'' How, in the face of these figures, the Census Bureau 
can report a decline in the average size of farms in the 
United States from 153 acres in 1870 to 134 acres in 
1880, I cannot understand." 

Perhaps I can offer an explanation which may assist 
Mr. George toward an understanding of what seems to 
him incomprehensible. 



264 CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 

The average size of farms in 1870 having been 153 
acres, any increase during the intervening decade in 
the number of farms below this limit would tend to 
lower the average size of farms in 1880 ; any increase 
in the number of farms above that limit would tend to 
raise the average for 1880. 

Now, in fact, there has been a greater increase, on 
the whole, in the number of farms below 153 acres, 
than in the number above 153 acres, and, consequently, 
the average size has been reduced. 

If I have not made the reason of the case plain, I 
shall be happy to resort to a more elementary state- 
ment, illustrated with diagrams, if desired. 
Respectfully yours, 

Francis A. Walker. 

THE CENSUS REPORT AND SUPERINTENDENT WALKER's 

EXPLANATION. 

\F}'om Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, Jti7te g, 1883.] 

I must ask the patience of the readers of these arti- 
cles if in this I make a digression, having reference to 
the letter from Gen. Francis A. Walker, Superinten- 
dent of the Ninth and Tenth Censuses, which appeared 
in the last issue of this journal. 

To my comprehension, General Walker has ''not 
made the reason of the case plain," nor has he ex- 
plained the discrepancies I pointed out. I shall be 
happy to have his more elementary statement, and, if 
he will be so kind, to have it illustrated with diagrams. 
But, in the meantime, as his reassertion of the state- 
ment of the Census Report carries the weight of offi- 
cial authority and professional reputation, I propose in 
this paper to show in more detail my reasons for dis- 
puting its accuracy. 



CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 265 

It is specifically asserted in the reports of the Tenth 
Census that the average size of farms in the United 
States decreased during the decade ending in 1880 from 
153 acres to 134 acres, and this assertion has been 
quoted all over the country as a conclusive reason why 
the people of the United States should not trouble 
themselves about the reckless manner in which what is 
now left of their once great public domain is being 
disposed of, and the rapid rate at which it is passing 
in enormous tracts into the private estates of non-resi- 
dent speculators, English lords and foreign syndicates. 
All over the country the press has pointed to this 
declaration of the Census Bureau as conclusive proof, 
which no one could question (and which, up to the 
publication of the fifth paper of this series, no one 
seems to have thought of questioning), that these things 
need excite no uneasiness, since the steady tendency is 
to the subdivision of large landholdings. The infer- 
ence would not be valid even if the alleged fact were 
true. But that I will not now discuss. I dispute the 
fact. 

General Walker states that, during the last decade, 
" there has been a greater increase, on the whole, in 
the number of farms below 153 acres than in the num- 
ber above 153 acres." This I shall show from General 
Walker's own official report is not true — is, in fact, 
the very reverse of the truth. But such a misstate- 
ment of fact, astonishing as it is, is not so astonishing 
as the misstatement of principle which precedes and 
follows it — viz., to quote the remainder of the sentence, 
"and, consequently^ the average size has been reduced." 

I have occasionally met thoughtless people w^ho 
talked of discounts of 150 and 200 per cent. ; I once 
knew a man who insisted that another man v/as twice 



266 c/':,vsrs report on the size of farms. 

as old as he was, because on a certain birthday, years 
before, he had been twice as old ; but I never yet met 
anybody, except very little children, to whom all coins 
were pennies, who would say that when a shopkeeper 
received one piece of money and handed out two, ho 
had consequently reduced the amount of money in his 
drawer ! Yet this is just such a statement as that made 
by General Walker. In asserting that the general in- 
crease in the number of farms under a certain size than 
in the number above that size must reduce the average 
size, General Walker ignores area, just as any one who 
would say that an amount of money had been reduced 
by adding one coin and taking away two would ignore 
value. Take, for instance, a farm of loo acres. Add 
to it two farms of 50 acres each and one farm of 400 
acres. Here there has been a greater increase in the 
number of farms below 100 acres than the number 
above 100 acres, but so far from the average having 
consequently been reduced, it has been increased from 
100 to 150 acres ! 

Tlie truth is, of course, that number is only one of 
the factors of average, which is in itself an expression 
of proportion between number and some other prop- 
erty of things, such as size, weight, length, value, etc. 
An average does not, as General Walker says, increase 
or diminish according to the numerical preponderance, 
on one side or the other, of the items added, but ac- 
cording to the preponderance in number and quality. 
Thus, though the addition of any farm of less than 153 
acres would tend to reduce an average of 153 acres, the 
addition of one farm of three acres would tend much 
more strongly to reduce the average than the addition 
of one of 152 acres, and the addition of one farm of 
1,000 acres would do much more to increase the aver- 



CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OE EARMS. 267 

n^re than the addition of several farms of 154 acres. 
Just as weights upon the arms of a lever tend more 
strongly to counterbalance each other the further they 
are placed from the fulcrum, so increase in the number 
of farms will tend more strongly to raise or reduce the 
average the further in point of area the new farms are 
from the previous average. And it may be worth 
while to remark that while the possibilities on the side 
of decrease are limited, the possibilities on the side of 
increase are unlimited. A farm less than 153 acres 
can only be less by something within 153 acres ; but a 
farm greater than 153 acres may be greater by 10,000 
or 100,000, or any larger number of acres. 

I speak of tins simple and obvious principle not 
merely to show the curious confusion of thought which 
General Walker exhibits, but for the purpose of point- 
ing out the significance of the facts I have previously 
cited — a significance which General Walker does not 
appear, even yet, to realize. 

Let me refer those who may wish to verify the ac- 
curacy of the figures I am about to quote to Table 
LXIIL, pp. 650-657, Compendium of the Tenth Census, 
Part I. This table gives the total number of farms for 
1880, 1870, i860 and 1850, the number of farms in eight 
specified classes for 1880, 1870 and i860 ; the farm 
acreage and the average size of farms for four censuses. 
We are told in a note that '' it will be noticed " that the 
number of farms given in the specified classes for i860 
fail to agree with the total number given, and that 
"these discrepancies appear without explanation in 
the Census of i860." This is well calculated to impress 
one who casually turns over the pages of the Compen- 
dium with the vigilant care that has been exercised, but 
it becomes rather amusing when read in the light of the 



268 CEA^SUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 

far more striking discrepancies which appear without 
explanation in the Census of 1880. 

What first struck me in glancing over this table, and 
what is so obvious that I cannot understand how, from 
Census Superintendent to lowest clerk, any one could 
have transcribed, or even glanced over — not to sav ex- 
amined — these figures without being struck by it, is that 
in the face of the fact that we are told that between 1870 
and 1880 the average size of farms has been reduced, 
the same table shows in its very first lines that the 
great increase in the number of farms between 1870 and 
1880 has all been in the four classes of largest areas, 
and that the larger the area the greater the increase ; 
while the number of farms in the four classes of small- 
er area have actually diminished, and the smaller the 
class area the greater the diminution ! To recur to our 
simile, it is not only that more weights have been placed 
on one end of the lever, but they have been pushed out 
further from the centre. On the other arm the weights 
have not only been diminished, but they have been 
drawn in closer to the centre. Yet we are told that the 
lever has tipped toward the end that has been lightened ! 

This is the fact to which I called attention in the fifth 
paper of this series as showing the inaccuracy of the 
assertion that the average size of farms had decreased 
in the United States during the last decade. So con- 
clusive is it, and so obvious is it, that I am forced to 
suppose that the Superintendent of the Tenth Census 
has never even glanced over the totals of his own re- 
port. For, although the number of farms in 1880 and 
1870 are merely placed in parallel columns in the Cen- 
sus Report, without subtraction, yet such differences as 
4,352 farms under three acres in 1880, and 6,875 i^ ^^7°? 
and of 28,578 farms over 1,000 acres in 1880 against 



CENSUS REPORT GN THE SIZE OF FARMS. 269 

3,720 in 1870, are glaring enough to strike the eye of 
any one who has been told that the average size of 
farms has diminished, and to put him upon inquiry. 

In order to show the striking results of a comparison 
of the number of farms in the eight specified classes, in 
1880 and 1870, as reported by the Census Bureau, I 
have taken the trouble to do what the Census Bureau 
has not done, and figure out the differences. 

Changes during Decade ending 1880 in the Number of Farms 
IN THE Eight Specified Classes, as Reported by Census 
Bureau. 

Decrease in Ratio of de- 
Class, mmtbe}'. crease. 

I. — Under 3 acres 2,523 37 per cent. 

II.— 3 to 10 " 37.132 21 " 

III.— 10 to 20 " 39-858 14 " 

IV.— 20 to 50 " 66,140 8 " 

Increase in Ratio of in- 
7iuniber, crease. 

V. — 50 to 100 acres .... „ 278,689 37 per cent. 

VI. — 100 to 500 " 1,130,929 200 " " 

VII. — 500 to 1,000 " .* 60,099 379 " " 

VIII.— Over 1,000 " 24,858 668 " " 

This steady progression from a decrease of thirty- 
seven per cent, in farms under three acres up to an in- 
crease of 6(iZ per cent, in farms over 1,000 acres is con- 
clusive proof that the average size of farms could not 
have decreased from 153 to 134 acres. And the figures 
of numerical decrease and increase are at the same time 
a disproof of General Walker upon the ground he has 
chosen. ''Now, in fact," he says, ''there has been a 
greater increase, on the whole, in the number of farms 
below 153 acres than in the number above 153 acres 
and consequently the average size has been reduced." 

The pivotal point, of 153 acres, falls in Class VI., 
which includes farms between 100 and 500 acres. There 
is no way of deciding with certainty how many of these 
farms are between 100 and 153 acres, and how many 



270 CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 

between 153 and 500 acres; but inasmuch as, in the 
absence of special reasons to the contrary, there can be 
no doubt that the average of the class must largely ex- 
ceed 153 acres (which is very much nearer the class 
minimum than the class maximum), and therefore that, 
taken as a whole, the entire class must count on the 
side of increase, we should reach substantial accuracy 
in setting down the whole increase in this class as over 
153 acres. This would give : 

Increase in number of farms above 153 acres 1,215,886 

Net increase in farms below 153 acres 133,036 



Excess in increase of number of farms above 153 acres. . . 1,082,850 

This would be substantially accurate ; but if a greater 
formal exactness is required, let us try to decide, as 
best we may, what part of the farms of between loo and 
500 acres should be counted as under 153 acres. 

Whoever knows anything of the United States land 
system, and the parcelling of land in our newer States 
and Territories where the greater part of this increase 
in the number of farms has taken place, knows that 
the farms between 100 and 160 acres must be compar- 
atively few. The reason of this is, that the Govern- 
ment surveys divide the land into sections and fractions 
of a section, the practical unit being the quarter-section 
of 160 acres, which is the amount open to pre-emption 
and homestead entry. The land grant railroad com- 
panies sell their land in the same way by the Govern- 
ment surveys ; and, in fact, nearly all the transfers of 
farms in our new States, long after the land has passed 
into private hands, is by fractions of a section, the 
quarter-section of 160 acres being almost universally 
regarded as the unit. When the quarter-section is di- 
vided, it is generally divided into the eighth, or as it 



CEiVSL/S REPORT OiV THE SIZE OE EARMS. 



271 



is commonly called, the half-quarter section, which 
falls into the class below the one we are considering. 
There can be no doubt whatever that the great major- 
ity of the newer farms of the class between 100 and 500 
acres consist of quarter-sections, two-quarter sections, 
and three-quarter sections. Considering all this, it is 
certain that we shall be making a most liberal allow- 
ance for the farms between 100 and 153 acres if we es- 
timate the farms above 153 acres at 1,000,000 and those 
below at the odd number of 130,929. This would give : 

Increase in farms above 153 acres 1,084,957 

Net increase in farms below 153 acres 263,965 



Excess in increase of farms above 153 acres 820,992 

I have disposed of General Walker's principle and 
of his fact, and have sustained my own allegation of 
the inaccuracy of the Census Report. I will now go 
further, and prove in another way the glaring discrep- 
ancies of the Census Report, and the grossness of the 
assumption that it shows a reduction in the average 
size of farms. Subtracting the totals given for 1870 
from those given for 1880, we find the increase in 
acreage and number of farms as follows : 

Total number 

offarfiis. Total acreage. 

1880 4,008,907 536,081,835 

1^7° 2,659,985 407,735,041 



Increase in decade 1,348,922 128,346,794 

The average size of farms in 1880, given at 134 acres, 
has been obtained by dividing the total acreage by the 
given total number of farms. The division is correct, 
but examination shows that there is an error either in 
the dividend or in the divisor, which makes the quo- 
tient less than it ought to be. Either the number of 
farms is too high, or the acreage too low. Let me 
prove this beyond question. 



272 CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 

The net increase in the number of farms in the eight 
specified classes, as I have given it, corresponds witli 
the total increase obtained by subtracting from the 
total number of farms given for 1880 the total given 
for 1870. But no estimate can make the increase in 
area correspond. 

To show that it is impossible on any supposition to 
make the increased acreage of the specified classes as 
low as the increased acreage according to the census 
totals, we will, where there has been decrease in the 
number of farms, consider these farms to have been of 
the very largest size embraced in the class. Where the 
number of farms has increased we will consider these 
farms as having been of the very smallest size embraced 
in the class. 

Thus we have — 

Class. Decrease. 

I. — Under 3 acres, 2,523, at 3 acres 7.569 

II. — 3 to 10 " 37,132, at 10 " 371,320 

III. — 10 to 20 -" 39,858, at 20 " 797,160 

IV. — 20 to 50 " 66,140, at 50 " 3,307,000 

Total decrease in area 4,483,049 

Class. Increase . 

V. — 50 to 100 acres, 278,689, at 50 acres 13,934,450 

VI. — 100 to 500 " 1,130,929, at 100 " 113,092,900 

VII. — 500 to 1,000 " 60,099, at 500 " 30,049,500 

VIII. — Over 1,000 " 24,858, at 1,000 " 24,858,000 

Total increase in area 181,934,850 

Subtract decrease 4,483,049 

Net increase in farm acreage , 177,451,801 

Thus this lowest possible estimate of increased farm 
area exceeds the increase of 128,346,794, according to 
the census totals, by no less than 49,105,007 acres. 
According to the census totals the average area of the 
1,348,922 new farms was only 95.1 acres. According 
to this lowest possible estimate of the areas assigned 



CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 273 

to these new farms in the table of specified classes, the 
average is 13 1.6. And adding this very lowest possible 
estimate of increased average to that given for 1870, the 
total farm acreage of the United States in 1880 was 
585,186,842 acres, instead of 536,081,835 acres, as rep- 
resented by the Census Bureau, giving an average of 
145.9 a,cres, instead of 134 acres, as reported. 

Of course, such an estimate is preposterous, but it 
shows indisputably the glaring incorrectness of the 
Census Report 

To obtain from the table of specified classes an esti- 
mate of the true increase of farm acreage in the United 
States during the last decade, our only way is to ascer- 
tain from the census of 1870, also made under General 
Walker's superintendence, the average of class areas 
which would give the total for that year, and take them 
for our calculation. 

To make the acreage of the specified classes for 1870 
agree with the total acreage given, we must make some 
such estimate as the following : 

ACREAGE BY SPECIFIED CLASSES FOR 187O. 



Average Ninnber of Total 

Class. acreage. farms. acres. 

I. — Under 3 acres 2^^ 6,875 '^l^'^^l 

8^ 172,020 1,505,183 

18 294,607 5,302,926 

44 847,614 37,295,016 

90 754,221 67,879,890 

400 565,054 226,021,600 

900 15.873 14,285,700 

14,900 3,720 55,428,000 



II. — 3 to 10 

III. — 10 to 20 

IV. — 20 to 50 

V. — 50 to 100 

VI. — 100 to 500 

VII. — 500 to 1,000 

VIII. — Over 1,000 



2.659.985 407.735,502 



This is about as close as I can figure with any regard 
to proportion, and it comes so close to 407,735,041, the 
acreage given for 1870, that the difference would not 
perceptibly affect any average. 

18 



274 CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OE FARMS. 

Now, taking these averages of 1870 as a basis for 
calculating the true farm acreage in 1880, we have : 

ACREAGE BY SPECIFIED CLASSES FOR 1880. 

Nt{7nber of 

Acres. favTns. Acreage. 

2.}4 4.352 10,880 

83| 134,889 1,180,278 

18 254,749 4-585.482 

44 781.474 34.384.856 

90 1,032,910 92,961,900 

400 1,695,983 678,393,200 

900 75.972 68,374,800 

...14,900 28,578 425,812,200 



Closs. 






L- 


— Under 


3 acr 


IL- 


-3 to 


10 " 


III.- 


—10 to 


20 " 


IV.- 


—20 to 


50 " 


V.- 


-50 to 


IGO " 


VI.- 


—100 to 


500 " 


Vll.- 


—500 to I 


,000 ' ' 


VIII.- 


—Over I 


,000 " 



Totals 4,008,907 I.. 305, 703, 596 

This would make the averasfe size of farms in the 
United States 325I- acres, instead of 134 acres as re- 
ported by the Census Bureau, an increase of 172I- acres, 
instead of a decrease of 19 acres as reported. 

I do not, of course, say that this estimate is correct. 
I can only say that it is the best that can be made from 
the Census Reports. These reports show such a lack of 
intelligent superintendence and editing, that I doubt 
their reliability for any purpose. The only thing ab- 
solutely certain is, that the conclusions of the Census 
Bureau are not correct. 

And further than the gross discrepancies I have 
shown, these returns of farms and farm areas give no 
idea of the manner in which the ownership of land is 
concentrating in the United States. It is not merely 
that in many cases the same person is the owner of 
separate farms, but it is evident from the returns that 
stock farms, cattle ranches, and the large tracts held 
by absentees, have not been included. This may be 
seen by the fact that the returns of farms over 1,000 
acres number only 14 for Wyoming, 43 for New Mexico, 
20 for Montana, 8 for Idaho, 74 for Dakota, and so on. 



CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OE EARMS. 275 

I have gone into this subject at such length because 
the authority of the census has been so generally in- 
voked as conclusive proof that the ownership of land 
is not concentrating in the United States. The truth 
is, that it is concentrating so rapidly that, should pres- 
ent tendencies continue, it will not be many decades 
before we shall be a nation of landlords and tenants. 

SUPERINTENDENT WALKER's FURTHER EXPLANATION. 
\_Ero77t Erank Leslie's Ilhistrated Nezvspaper, June 16, 1883.] 

To the Editor of Frank Leslie s Illustrated Newspaper : 

Mr. George's attack upon the Census Statistics of the 
number and size of farms, in your issue of June 9th, af- 
fords a capital example of that writer's cleverness in 
imposing upon the careless reader. Indeed, although 
somewhat familiar with the subject-matter, I wasn't 
sure myself, until I had gone through the article more 
than once, that there might not be something in it, so 
portentous was the marshalling of figures, so loud and 
strenuous the assertion that the census was wrong in 
this and inconsistent in that ; so artfully were all the 
resources of controversy used to produce the impres- 
sion Mr. George desired. And yet there is absolutely 
nothing in it which cannot be readily and completely 
disproved. It is, from beginning to end, an utter sham. 
Suppose a township of 25 square miles to have been 
divided, in 1870, into 64 farms of 250 acres each. These 
would have been reported, according to the classifica- 
tion in use at each census from 1850 to the present 
time, as farms of over 100 and under 500 acres ; aggre- 
gate land in farms, 16,000 acres. Now, suppose pre- 
cisely the same territory to have been divided in 1880 
into farms of 125 acres each. The official record would 
then read, 128 farms of over 100 and under 500 acres; 



276 CEA^SUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 

aggregate land in farms, 16,000 acres. Ah, exclaims 
the critic, observe this monstrous blunder! Here is 
an increase of 64 farms in this class, and yet no in- 
crease whatever of acreage ! Let us, he continues, con- 
cede, in the extreme spirit of fairness, that these farms 
were all of the very smallest size contained in this 
class, viz. : 100 acres each, we still ought to have, at 
the least, an increase of 6,400 acres over the official re- 
turn, which is thus shown on the face of it to be false. 

This is Mr. George's reasoning, precisely. To omit 
minor classes, let us take the greatest class of all, that 
of farms between 100 and 500 acres, the increase in the 
number of farms of this class being no less than 1,130,- 
929, against 217,993 only of all the other classes com- 
bined. Mr. George assumes that these 1,130,929 farms 
represent a pure net addition to the acreage of enclosed 
land. Having made such an utterly gratuitous, utterly 
unfounded, utterly dishonest assumption, Mr. George, 
with that inimitable show of candor which always char- 
acterizes him after a logical larceny of this sort, very 
graciously gives the Census Office the benefit of his 
concession that he will only exact 100 acres for each 
of these 1,130,929 farms : and having proceeded to deal 
this way with all the other classes, he brings the Cen- 
sus Office out a debtor in the sum of 49,105,007 acres. 
Perhaps, with that same remarkable candor, he would 
consent to strike off 105,007 acres and call it only 
49,000,000. 

Such is the wretched stuff which Mr. George im- 
poses on his readers as a serious statistical argument. 
That the land of all the older States is in process of 
subdivision, every one above the grade of a plantation 
hand, who has lived three years east of the Rocky 
Mountains, knows perfectly well. In the main, the in- 



CENSUS REPORT OiV THE SIZE OF FARMS. 2.^>j 

crease of farms in these States is by the partition of 
land previously enclosed. Thus, Connecticut showed 
2,364,416 acres in 25,508 farms in 1870, and 2,453,541 
acres in 30,598 farms in 1880, an increase of nearly 
twenty per cent, in farms, and of but five per cent, in 
acreage. New York showed 22,190,810 acres in 216,253 
farms in 1870, and 23,780,754 acres in 241,058 farms in 
1880. Georgia, to take a State from another section, 
showed 23,647,941 acres in 69,956 farms in 1870, and 26,- 
043,282 acres in 138,626 farms in 1880 ; a gain of about 
ten per cent, in acreage, and of almost 100 per cent, in 
farms. This tremendous increase of farms in Georgia 
is due to the continuous subdivision of the old planta- 
tions in order to furnish small farms for the late slaves 
and the " poor whites " of that region. The same 
cause is operating, with great force, all over the South, 
and this it is which has brought about that reduction 
of the average size of farms in the United States from 
153 acres in 1870 to 134 acres in 1880, which arouses 
such prodigious wrath on the part of Mr. George, who, 
having started out on a crusade against landed prop- 
erty with the cry that the country is going to the dogs 
through the aggregation of great estates — latifundia^ as 
he magnificently calls it, to the confusion, there is rea- 
son to fear, of most of his disciples — is brought violent- 
ly and injuriously up against hard facts, such as those 
just cited. The following table shows the increase of the 
number of farms in the chief cotton-planting States : 

1880. 1870. 

Alabama 135,864 67,382 

Arkansas 94.433 49-424 

Georgia. ... 138,626 ' 69,956 

Louisiana 48,292 28,481 

Mississippi 101,772 68,023 

North Carolina 157,609 93.565 

South Carolina 93864 51,889 

Tennessee 165,650 118,141 

Texas 174,184 61,125 



278 CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 

Such, then, is Mr. George's main argument against 
the census figures. "Let me," he says, "prove this 
beyond question." We may, therefore, understand tliis 
to be Mr. George's idea of proving a proposition be- 
yond question. And, in truth, it is very much the way 
he has taken to prove all the propositions I have read 
from his pen. To make any assumption whatever that 
suits his purpose, to reason therefrom most logically 
and felicitously, and to apply thereto, when required, 
arithmetical computations of the most minute accuracy, 
is the favorite method of this apostle of a new political 
economy and a regenerated humanity. 

In the case under consideration, he assumes that new 
farms always represent new lands, a most gratuitous 
assumption, contrary to the known facts of the situ- 
ation, and then proceeds, by a faultless series of addi- 
tions and multiplications, to bring the Census Office 
in as debtor in the amount of 49,000,000 acres lost to 
the nation through its carelessness. 

Again, Mr. George's assumption that the farms be- 
tween 100 and 500 acres must be preponderatingly 
above 153 acres, inasmuch as the Government sells 
land in 160-acre lots, " quarter sections,'* as they are 
called, may be met by the assertion that five-sixths of 
the present farms of the United States were either not 
granted originally on the quarter-section plan (as in 
the Eastern States), or else have been long enough in 
private hands to allow, as Americans buy and sell, 
abundant scope for changes of area, in the way of par- 
tition, consolidation, etc. 

The question at issue between Mr. George and the 
Census Office really turns upon the average size of 
the farms between 100 and 500 acres. Mr. George es- 
timates that average at 400 acres ! The reasonable- 



CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS, 279 

ness or unreasonableness of this will best be made to 
appear by presenting the number of farms in the 
classes above and below : 

20 to 50 acres 781,474 

50 to 100 " 1,032,910 

100 to 500 " 1,695,983 

500 to 1,000 " 75.972 

Any one who can look at these figures and not see, 
at a glance, that the probabilities are overwhelmingly 
in favor of the supposition that the great body of the 
farms of the third class, in the above table, are nearer, 
much nearer, very much nearer, to the lower than to 
the upper limit, is to be pitied for his defective eye- 
sight and his defective mind-sight. If Mr. George 
cannot see that, there is reason to fear that a diagram 
would not help him. Who can believe it possible that, 
while the farms of Class Four are only i in 22 of the 
farms in Class Three, the farms of the latter class lie 
so close up to the limit of the fourth class as to aver- 
age# 400 acres each, or for that matter, 300 acres, or 
even 250 acres ? 

It is certainly to be regretted, since this controversy 
lias arisen, that a new class, 100 to 150, or 100 to 200 
acres, was not introduced. But the classification taken 
for this purpose is that which has always heretofore 
been employed, alike in 1850, in i860, and 1870 ; while, 
so far as I am aware, no one has ever before com- 
plained of its indeficiency or suggested to the Census 
Office the subdivision of this class. 

Mr. George is undoubtedly right in his captious cor- 
rection of my phraseology in speaking of the effect 
produced by an increase in the number of farms, 
above or below the line, 153 acres, upon the average 
size of all farms in comparison of 1870 with 1880. I 



28o CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 

think no one would have failed to understand me who 
desired to do so, and what I had in mind was perfectly 
just ; yet, in a controversy with a gentleman so much 
more particular about phraseology than about facts, I 
should have done well to state my meaning more ex- 
plicitly. Respectfully, 

Francis A. Walker. 
Boston, June lo, 1883. 

FURTHER ANALYSIS OF THE CENSUS REPORT. 
\Fro}n Frank Leslie's I Ihistrated Newspaper, J tine 30, 1 883.] 

In his reply to my exhibition of the utter inconsis- 
tency between the census figures and census conclu- 
sions as to the size of farms, Professor Walker, in- 
stead of furnishing the diagrams with which he, in the 
first place, proposed to enlighten my ignorance, resorts 
to something more resembling diatribes. To such con- 
troversy I cannot descend. 

Professor Walker complains that I estimate the aver- 
age size of farms in the class between 100 and 500 acres 
at 400 acres, and devotes much space to showing that 
this estimate is too great. But this estimate is not mine. 
Had I been making a guess, without reference to the 
Census Report, I should certainly not have put the 
average of this class at above 250 acres. But at any 
such average it is impossible to make the aggregate 
acreage of the specified classes for 1870 correspond 
with the total acreage given. As I showed in detail, 
to make the acreage of these classes agree with the total 
acreage given, such averages as 90 acres for the class be- 
tween 50 and 100 acres, 400 acres for the class between 
100 and 500, 900 acres for the class between 500 and 
1,000 acres, and 14,900 for farms over j,ooo acres must 



CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OE FARMS. 281 

be assumed. These averages seem to me preposterous ; 
but T am not responsible for them. Professor Francis 
A. Walker, Superintendent of the Tenth Census, must 
settle this matter with Professor Francis A. Walker, 
Superintendent of the Ninth Census. 

And to clinch what I have already said as to the size 
of farms in Class IV., I challenge Professor Walker to 
give to the public any computation of acreage by speci- 
fied classes by which, putting the average of Class IV. 
at 153 acres, and having any regard whatever for pro- 
portion in the other classes, he can make the total 
acreage correspond with that given in the Census 
Report. 

As for Professor Walker's effort to prove that in- 
crease in the number of farms does not necessarily in- 
volve increase in total area, it would be as pertinent for 
him to attempt to prove that in changing a dollar into 
ten dimes one gets no more money, or that a big piece 
of cloth Tcv^ be cut into small pieces without increase 
in the amount of cloth. This I have never heard denied, 
unless by Professor Walker himself, who, in his previous 
letter, asserted that a greater increase in the number 
of farms below than above a certain point necessarily 
showed a decrease of average area. The absurdity of 
this — a principle which he offered to illustrate with dia- 
grams — I previously pointed out, and he now admits, 
but in a style which reminds me of a dispute I once 
heard between two colored citizens. One, who gloried 
in the title of Professor Johnson, was boasting that he 
could polish twelve dozen pairs of boots in half an hour. 
A fellow bootblack disputed this, and pressed him with a 
bet. Driven into a corner. Professor Johnson, with 
much indignation, declared that when he said twelve 
dozen pairs of boots he meant six pairs of shoes, and 



282 CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 

any " fool nigger " ought to know what he meant. So, 
Professor Walker, driven to admit the absurdity of his 
statement of principle, speaks of my captious correction 
of \)\^ phraseology.^ and declares that no one would have 
failed to understand him who desired to do so. This 
is a rather unbecoming descent from the altitude of an 
offer of diagrams ! A frank admission that he had been 
betrayed by carelessness would have inspired more re- 
spect. 

But it is to be feared, that such carelessness is a habit 
with Professor Walker. This letter shows as curious 
confusion of thought as his first, and, with seemingly 
utter unconsciousness of the fallacy, he essays, with what 
the logicians call an ignoratio eltnchi, to break the force 
of my marshalling of census figures. To prove the abso- 
lute inconsistency of the census, I showed that the low- 
est possible estimate of increased acreage by specified 
classes gives an aggregate acreage of 49,105,107 acres 
in excess of the census total. To this conclusive proof 
of gross inaccuracy Professor Walker replies by suppos- 
ing a township of twenty-five square miles. [It may 
be worth while to remark that a United States town- 
ship is thirty-six, not twenty-five, square miles.] He 
supposes this township to have been divided in 1870 
into 64 farms of 250 acres each, which would be re- 
turned by the census in the class between 100 and 500 
acres. In 1880 the same township is divided into 128 
farms of 125 acres each. But the acreage of 64 addi- 
tional farms at the lowest class limit of 100 acres, added 
to the previous total acreage, would give 6,400 more 
acres than the township contains ; which proves, accord- 
ing to Professor Walker, that, in assuming that the net 
increase of acreage of specified classes must represent an 
addition to that acreage, I have made "an utterly gra- 



CEiVSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS, 283 

tuitous, utterly unfounded, utterly dishonest assump- 
tion." 

In fact, however, Professor Walker's unfortunate ex- 
ample proves nothing in point, unless it be the truth 
of the old rhyme : 

" If ?/> and ans were pots and pans, 
There'd be few blundering tinkers." 

What Professor Walker omits in his example — as, of 
course, he will see when his attention is called to it — 
is the essence of the matter, the division into classes. 
By supposing the farms in his township to be all within 
one class. Professor Walker ignores this essential ele- 
ment. The case he presents is not analogous to the 
case presented by the census, but analogous to the 
case which would be presented by the census were no 
returns by classes given. If the census reports merely 
gave us the total acreage and total number of farms, 
we could go no further in verif3dng what it told us as 
to increase or decrease of average than by testing the 
division. But the census gives us more than this. Be- 
sides total acreage and total number, it gives us the 
number of farms in eight specified classes as to area. 

To make Professor Walker's supposed township anal- 
ogous to the case in point, we must suppose its farms 
to vary in size from under three acres to over 1,000 
acres, and that we are given for each decade, not mere- 
ly the total number of farms and total area, but also 
tlie number in eight classes of specified areas. This 
given, in case the average size of the farms in the town- 
ship had decreased from 250 acres to 125 acres, should 
we not expect the class returns to show an increase in 
the number of farms in the classes of smaller acreage, 
and a decrease in the classes of Jarger acreage ? And 



284 CEJVSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 

if they were to show just the reverse of this — a de- 
crease in the number of smaller farms and an increase 
in the number of larger farms — should we not say that 
they were inconsistent with the reduction of average ? 
This inconsistency is just what the Census Report 
shows. 

Professor Walker asserts that I have made a gratuit- 
ous assumption, contrary to the known facts of the 
case, in assuming that additional farms represent ad- 
ditional land. If he will show me, with or without 
diagrams, any other basis of computation, I shall be 
obliged to him. I do not know what arithmetic they 
may use in the Boston Technical School, but I will 
take an example after the manner of the old arithme- 
tics : 

'^A boy's trousers contain two yards of cloth; his 
father's, three yards. Last year they had each two 
pairs of trousers ; this year they have each three pairs. 
How much more cloth have they in their trousers this 
year than last ? " 

Any one — outside, perhaps, the Census Bureau or 
Technical School of Boston — would say: ''One more 
pair of trousers for the boy, two yards ; one more for 
the father, three yards. Answer — five yards." 

Supposing somebody should reply: "You have 
made in your calculation an utterly gratuitous, utterly 
unfounded, utterly dishonest assumption, contrary to 
all the known facts of the case. You have assumed the 
boy's new trousers to have been made from new cloth, 
whereas they were cut down from his father's old 
ones I " 

Any little child would smile, and answer : " That 



CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 285 

makes no difference. Whether the father's trousers 
have been cut down for the boy, or the boy's trousers 
have been pieced out for the father, the boy has one 
more pair of trousers with two yards in them, and the 
father one more pair of trousers with three yards in 
them, and together they have five yards more cloth in 
their trousers." 

And so, though it is true that in many cases farms of 
one class are formed from previously existing farms of 
another class, the only method of com.puting increase 
of area is by taking the increased number at the given 
area. An acre of land may form part of a farm of one 
class at one time, and of a farm of another class at an- 
other time. But we cannot suppose it to be in two 
farms at the same time. 

Witliout meeting the facts and figures which I gave 
from the Census Report in disproof of the assertion 
that the average size of farms had been reduced in the 
last decade, Professor Walker reiterates that assertion. 
He says : 

" That the land of all the older States is in process 
of subdivision, every one above the grade of a plan- 
tation hand, who has lived three years east of the 
Rocky Mountains, knows perfectly well. In the main, 
the increase of farms in these States is by the parti- 
tion of land previously inclosed. Thus, Connecticut 
showed 2,364,416 acres in 25,508 farms in 1870, and 
2,453,541 acres in 30,598 farms in 1880 — an increase of 
nearly twenty per cent, in farms, and of but five per 
cent, in acreage. New York showed 22, 190, 8to acres 
in 216,253 farms in 1870, 23,780,754 acres in 241,058 
farms in 1880. Georgia, to take a State from another 
section, showed 23,647,941 acres in 69,956 farms in 



286 CEA^SUS RE FOR 7^ ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 

1870, and 26,043,282 acres in 138,626 farms in 1880 — a 
gain of about ten per cent, in acreage, and of almost 
100 per cent, in farms. This tremendous increase of 
farms in Georgia is due to the continuous subdivision 
of the old plantations in order to furnish small farms 
for the late slaves and the ' poor whites ' of that region. 
The same cause is operating, with great force, all over 
the South, and this it is which has brought about that 
reduction of the average size of farms in the United 
States from 153 acres in 1870 to 134 acres in 1880, 
which arouses such prodigious wrath on the part of 
Mr. George." 

It is a very pleasant theory that the old plantations 
in the South are being subdivided in order to furnish 
small farms for the late slaves and the "poor whites," 
and it would be still pleasanter if it involved any pre- 
sumption that they were getting these small farms as 
owners and not as rack-rented tenants. But, unfortu- 
nately, while it is not borne out by any information 
from the South that I have been able to get, it is abso- 
lutely disproved by the census returns. Professor 
Walker parades, as though it were proof of this subdi- 
vision of plantations, a table giving the total number 
of farms in nine cotton-growing States in 1870 and 
1880, which shows a large increase in the number of 
farms ; but he very prudently neglects to specify the 
classes in which this increase took place. He could 
not have done this without showing to the eye of the 
reader that, instead of a continuous subdivision of the 
old plantations, the general tendency in those States is 
to an increase in the size of farms. Whoever will 
glance over the census returns by specified classes will 
see that, whereas there was in the decade ending 1870 



CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 287 

a striking decrease in the number of large farms, and 
a striking increase in the number of small farms, yet 
in the decade ending 1880 the striking increase is in 
the large farms, and the striking decrease in the small 
farms. If old plantations are being cut np, then new 
plantations in greater number are being formed ; for 
in all these States the most striking increase is in the 
larger classes. The farms having 500 and 1,000 acres, 
and over 1,000 acres, are in all these States much more 
numerous in 1880 than in 1870, and even much more 
numerous than in i860. 

The following table, drawn from the census reports, 
shows the number of farms of each class in the nine 
States referred to by Professor Walker — viz., Alabama, 
Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Caro- 
lina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas — for the last 
three censuses : 

Number of Farms in Cotton States by Classes. 

Class. i860. 1870. 1880. 

I. — Under 3 acres No returns 2,053 1.308 

II. — 3 to 10 " 11,248 47,088 36,644 

III. — 10 to 20 " 37,494 101,272 111,111 

IV. — 20 to 50 " 123,977 223,444 277,112 

V. — 50 to 100 " 101,576 124,852 229,006 

VI. — 100 to 500 " 112,193 91-370 410,066 

VII — 500 to 1,000 " 11,976 6,407 37,843 

VIII.— Over 1,000 " 3,557 1,500 17-394 

These figures shov that the movement in these nine 
Southern States was in the last decade the reverse of 
the movement in the previous decade, and was to the 
increase, not to the decrease, in the size of farms. 
This will be even more strikingly shown to the eye of 
the reader by the following table, which exhibits the 
percentage of increase or decrease in each class for 
the decade ending 1870 and the decade ending 1880 : 



2SS CEA'srs /i:/:roA:r ox the size of farms. 

Percentage of Change in Number of Farms in Cotton States. 

1870. i8£:o. 

Class. Percent Percent. 

I. — Under 3 acres No returns for i860. 31 decrease. 

Tl. — 3 to 10 " 319 increase. 22 " 

III. — 10 to 20 " 170 " 10 increase. 

IV. — 20 to 50 " 80 " 24 " 

V. — 50 to 100 " 23 " 77 " 

\'l. — 100 to 500 " 19 decrease. 349 " 

VII. — 500 to 1,000 " 47 " 491 " 

\lli. — Over 1,000 •' 58 " 1,060 " 

In the face of this exhibit, what could be more pre- 
posterously false than the census declaration, reiterated 
by Superintendent Walker, that the average size of 
farms in these States decreased in the last decade, and 
decreased almost as much as in the previous decade ! 
— viz., 32 per cent, in the decade ending iSSo, and 42 
per cent, in the decade ending 1S70 ! 

It is a work of supererogation to show in further de- 
tail tlie utter incompatibility of census figures with 
census conclusions ; but inasmuch as Professor Walker 
(nills attention to the three States of Connecticut, New 
York, and Georgia, let us follow him on the ground he 
has selected, and look brietiy at the returns for these 
States. We shall see that they too utterly disprove 
the census conclusions. 

For Connecticut the census totals give : 

Connecticut. 

Total Number oj Average size 

iicrectgt. farms. of farms. 

1870—2,364,416 35,508 93 acres. 

iSSo— 2,453.541 30.59S 80 •' 

Increase So, 125 S.OQO 13 acres decrease. 

Now let us see how this averred reduction in average 
size of farms from 93 to 80 acres is borne out by the 
returns of increase bv classes. These show : 



CEArS['S RF.POR']' OjV TlfK S/ZR OF FARMS. 289 

Change IN Numukk or Farms in Connecticut, Decade ending 

1880. 

Class. Cha77_^c in number. Change per cent. 

I. — Under 3 acres 'i'] decrease. 52 decrease. 

II. — 3 to 10 " 545 increast. 32 increase. 

III. — 10 to 20 " 310 '• 10 '' 

IV. — 20 to 50 " 14s decrease. 2 decrease. 

V. — 50 to 100 " 569 increase. 8 increase. 

VI. — 100 to 500 " 3.725 " 64 " 

VII. — 500 to 1,000 " 107 " 412 " 

VIII. — Over 1,000 " 16 " 1,600 " 

Net increase in farms under 100 acres 1,242 

Increase in farms over loo acres 3.848 

Could anything more conclusively disprove the as- 
sertion of reduced average ? 

Take now New York. Tlie census totals give : 

New Yt)KK. 

Total Ntcmbcr of Average size 
acreage. farms. of farms. 

1870—22,190,810 216.253 103 acres. 

1880 — 23,780,754 241,058 99 " 

Increase 1,589,944 24,805 4 acres decrease. 

Turning to the tables of specified classes, we find the 
increase has been 

Change in Number ok Farms in New York, Decade ending 1880. 

Class. Change in 11 itmber. Change per cent. 

I. — Under 3 acres 298 increase. 414 increase. 

II.— 3 to 10 " 1,537 " 12 

III. — 10 to 20 " 910 decrease. 6 decrease. 

IV. — 20 to 50 " 14.495 " 26 " 

v.— 50 to 100 " 3,295 " 4 

VI. — 100 to 500 " 49,325 increase. 72 increase. 

VII. — 500 to 1,000 " 1,106 " 542 " 

VIII. — Over 1,000 " 245 " 681 " 

Net decrease; in farms under 100 acres 16,871 

Increase in larnis over 100 acres 41,676 

In the face of these figures, will Professor Walker 
assert that tlie average size of farms in New York has 
decreased from 103 acres to 99 acres ? 

Now, let us take the case of Georgia, in which Pro- 
fessor Walker dwells, as the typical Southern State. 
19 



290 CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 



The census total gives : 

Georgia. 



Total 
acreage. 
1870—23,647,941 
1 8 80 — 26 , 043 , 2 82 



Number of 

farms. 

69,956 

138,626 



Increase 2,395,341 



68,670 



Average size 
of farms. 
338 acres. 
188 " 

150 acres decrease. 



From the table of specified classes we find the in- 
crease to have been : 

Change in Number of Farms in Georgia, Decade ending 1880. 



Class. 

I.— Under 


3 ac 
10 

20 ' 
SO ' 

100 ' 

500 ' 

,000 

,000 ' 


Change 
res No ret 


in number. 
urn for 1870. 
decrease, 
increase. 


Chan^ 

4 

25 
66 

41 
206 

733 


re per cent. 


11.-3 to 
III — 10 to 


' 147 


decrease. 


' 1,7^2 


increase. 


IV. — 20 to 


' 14,^=^^ 




v.— 50 to 
VI. — 100 to 


* 7,683 

' =56,1415 




VII — soo to I 


' ^,c;ii 




VIII.— Over I 


' 3,702 





After verifying these figures, will Professor Walker 
again assert, on the authority of the census, that during 
the last decade there has been a gain of about 10 per 
cent, in acreage, and almost 100 per cent, in farms 
in Georgia, and that the average size of farms has been 
reduced from 338 acres to 188 acres ? 

It is, of course, manifest in the case of Georgia as in 
the cases of Connecticut and New York, and of the Unit- 
ed States at large, that the real movement has been in 
the other direction — to the large increase instead of to 
the reduction of the average of farms. If we endeavor, 
from the data which the census gives us, to work out 
some approximation to the true average, our first step 
will be to ascertain what averages in the various classes 
reported for 1870 will give the total acreage for that 
year. The moment we attempt this we run against an 
astounding fact. The figures I am about to give I ex- 
pressly commend to Superintendent Walker, but I re- 



CENSUS REPORT ON THE SIZE OF FARMS. 291 

quest him to remember that it is he, not I, who is re- 
sponsible for them. What has he to say to the fact that, 
in order to make the acreage of the farms returned 
for Georgia by specified classes for 1870 correspond 
with the total acreage given for that year on which his 
calculation of average has been based, // is necessary to 
assume the very highest lii?iit of each class as the average of 
that class, and even then to assume the average of the class 
over 1,000 acres to be 24,558 acres'^ 
Here is the tabulation : 

Farm Acreage of Georgia, 1870, 

Total farm acreage of Georgia for 1870, as given by the Census 

Report 23,647,941 

Total number of farms 69,956 



■Class. 



Acreage by Specified Classes. 

Average Ntimber of 



II.— 3 to 


10 acres 


III.— 10 to 


20 " 


IV.— 20 to 


50 " 


v.— 50 to 


100 " 


VI. — 100 to 


500 " 


VII.— 500 to 


1,000 " 


VIII.— Over 


1,000 '' 



acreage. 


farms. 




10 


3'^S7 


32,570 


20 


6,942 


138,840 


50 


21,971 


1,098,550 


100 


18,371 


1,837,100 


500 


17,490 


8,745,000 


1,000 


1,506 


1,506,000 


24,558 


419 


10,289,802 



69,956 23,647,862 

After this, it would be wasting space and time to go 
farther. Whoever wants to figure out what, at this rate, 
has been the increase of farm acreage in Georgia dur- 
ing the decade, or what was the average in 1880, may 
do so. The Census Report offers opportunities for much 
amusing arithmetical exercise ; but save for this pur- 
pose, it is evidently not worth the paper on which it is 
printed. I have conclusively shown its utter unreli- 
ability, both as a whole and in its parts, and with this, 
must decline further controversy. 

New York, Henry George. 

June 15, 1883. 



II. 

Condition of English Agricultural Laborers. 

The following communication, from Mr. William 
Saunders, of London, was called forth by a letter 
signed "A Freeborn Englishman," in which some of 
the statements made in Cliapter X. of this book were 
in general terms denied : 

New York, July 24, 1883. 
To the Edito?' of Fraiik Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper : 

Sir — "A Freeborn Englishman," who ''emphati- 
cally denies " the accuracy of Mr. George's statements, 
is at a loss to conceive from what source he obtained 
his information. On this point I may enlighten him, 
as I can state from experience that Mr. George gained 
his knowledge by personal investigation in the loca- 
tion to which he refers. I wish that I could sustain 
the rose-colored view which " A Freeborn English- 
man " takes of the condition of the agricultural laborer 
in England. For fifty years I have been intimately 
acquainted with the state of agriculture in the south- 
ern part of the country, and during that time the 
standard wages have varied from one and a half to 
three and a half dollars per week. In Wiltshire, at 
the present time, the wages are from tvv^o and a quarter 
to three dollars per week. It must be noted that these 
are the wages not of boys but of married men, and that 
they are the total wages ; no food is given, and, as a 
rule, the laborers pay rent for a cottage, and always a 



CONDITION OF AGRICULTURAL L.A BORERS. 293 

very high rent for garden land, if they have any. Even 
the highest rate named is quite inadequate to provide a 
family with sufficient food of the plainest kind. It 
costs four dollars per week to provide food for five 
persons in the poorhouses of Wiltshh-e. Thus, if a 
man with a wife and three children spend all his 
wages for food he would still be short of the poor- 
house allowance, which is calculated at a very low rate. 

The statement of '' A Freeborn Englishman " that it 
is a rare thing for the aged of the industrial classes to 
go to the workhouse is entirely contrary to my experi- 
ence, and I may ask how is it possible for a man to 
save for old age when the laborer has to maintain him- 
self and his family upon a sum with which economical 
poor law guardians cannot support paupers ? 

As to commons, they not only have been, but are 
being inclosed by the owners of land. This is also the 
case with spaces on the roadside, so that the working- 
classes have lost the means they formerly had for 
maintaining cows, donkeys, or geese, and children have 
been deprived of their ancient playgrounds. As to 
footpaths, these are often closed ; but your correspon- 
dent is right when he says that interrupting an ancient 
highway excites the indignation of the people, and 
sometimes they tear down the obstruction. They did 
so recently in a case where Mr. E. P. Bouverie shut up 
a path near Devizes, in Wiltshire. Legal proceedings 
were taken, and, although it was proved that the pub- 
lic had- enjoyed the use of the footway for over a cen- 
tury, yet the landlord was enabled to show that during 
this period the estate had been entailed, so that no 
owner had the power to give the public a right of way, 
and thus the path was closed. By these and similar 
provisions in laws enacted by landlords, it is possible 



294 CONDITION OF AGRICULTURAL LABORERS. 

for a landlord to make constant encroachments upon 
the public ; for, if he maintains a claim for twenty years 
it is established in his favor, but no length of time can 
legalize the possession by the public against a claim 
raised by the owners of a family estate. Thus all the 
time family estates are growing and the public are 
losing. 

In referring to a case near London, *'A Freeborn 
Englishman " is misleading your readers. The people 
of London insisted upon exempting an area of fifteen 
miles around that city from the operation of Commons 
Inclosure Acts, and, therefore, the instance to which 
he refers does not apply to England generally. 

It must be puzzling to Americans to meet with such 
different statements respecting English laborers, and 
as your correspondent does not give the public his 
name or address, it may be allowable to test his asser- 
tions by the internal evidence which his letter affords 
on the subject of his accuracy. He boldly asserts that 
'' an equal distribution of property is the general prin- 
ciple that underlies " Mr. George's article. I challenge 
him to refer to a single paragraph in any of the volu- 
minous writings of Mr. George which justifies the idea 
that he advocates an equal distribution of property. 
Mr. George's writings are a protest against the confis- 
cation by landlords of property created by industry, 
and the statement that he advocates an equal distri- 
bution of property is entirely unfounded. 

Neither is your correspondent more happy in the as- 
sertion of his own principles than in his misrepresen- 
tation of Mr. George's views. He tells us that "a man 
obtains in England, as in America and elsewhere, just 
so much for his labor as his labor is worth, according 
to the law of supply and demand." One illustration 



CONDITION OF AGRICULTURAL LABORERS. 295 

from each side of the Atlantic will disprove this asser- 
tion. In Wiltshire, England, thousands of acres of 
excellent land are uncultivated, while thousands of 
half-starved but willing workmen demand an oppor- 
tunity for growing food for themselves and families. 
The land remains out of cultivation, and the laborers 
remain without work, solely because a landlord stands 
upon the land, and says to every farmer who wants to 
cultivate it, " You shall not do so unless you pay me 
six dollars an acre per annum, with an increase in 
future if I choose to demand it at the expiration of any 
year." If a workingman comes to the landlord and 
says to him, " Please let me have five acres of that land, 
upon which I will work and grow food for my own 
family and others," the landlord replies, " You shall 
not have that land unless you pay me fifteen dollars an 
acre per annum ; " and when the workingman asks why 
it is proposed to charge him so much more than is 
charged the farmer, the landlord tells him, "We do 
not want workingmen to have land, lest the farmers 
should be unable to obtain laborers." Thus the land 
remains out of cultivation, and the laborer without 
v.'ork and without food, because the landlord stands 
between demand and supply. 

In New Jersey, not far from where I am writing, 
thousands of acres of land are producing miasma and 
mosquitoes. Thousands of willing hands would drain 
this land and cover it with houses and manufactories, 
but in the meantime a landlord's agent stands upon the 
marsh and demands, in the name of a man who has 
done nothing, a payment of one thousand dollars or 
two thousand dollars an acre before he will allow the 
mosquitoes to be siq^pressed and houses and factories 
to be erected. 



296. CONDITION OF AGRICULTURAL LABORERS. 

Under these circumstances your correspondent may 
well say, " I should be glad to learn where in this 
country, or in any other country on the globe, does a 
man who has not capital obtain the ' full fruits of his 
labor ' ? " True it is that those who have capital and 
those who can avail themselves of the unjust privileges 
which law allows to capital, in connection with the 
possession of land, are the only persons who can ob- 
tain the full fruits of their own or other persons' labor ; 
and if the universality of injustice is a sound reason 
for upholding it, then undoubtedly Mr. George is in 
the wrong. 

I am willing to admit, as "A Freeborn Englishman" 
contends, that in some respects the agricultural laborer 
is better off than liis brother laborer in tlie crowded 
cities of Europe and America ; but, gracious Heaven ! 
is Jiis a matter for thankfulness ? I have had to spend 
the summer in New York, and with every alleviation 
that can be provided, my fate has been hard enough ; 
but what must be the condition of families crowded 
into tenement-houses during the summer heat? No 
man ought to think of it without a determination to do 
all in his power to lessen such terrible suffering. And 
this suffering, in New York and other cities, is the 
direct and immediate result of landlordism. In Lon- 
don, landlords dem.and and receive thirty millions of 
dollars annually from the working-classes, and they arc 
constantly raising their demands. This is the cause of 
overcrowding. Every month landlords kill more chil- 
dren than Herod destroyed in his lifetime ; and yet, as 
your correspondent reminds us, they are men of ex- 
cellent character. That they are all honorable men I 
do not dispute ; but the circumstance does not lessen 
the fearful consequences of the system of which they 



CONDITION OF AGRICULTURAL LABORERS. 297 

are the agents. It is not of abuses that we complain, 
but of the necessary consequences of landlordism, 
which, like a huge vise, crushes the masses of the peo- 
ple with more horrible effect at every turn of the screw. 
Industry, intelligence, and invention hold out promises 
of improvement which seem to be almost within our 
reach, but before they are obtained the landlord ad- 
vances his claims and the result is disappointment and 
misery. If this state of things continues, it will be the 
fault, not of the landlords, but of workingmen who 
have the power, and should have the determination, to 
deliver themselves and their children from a fatal in- 
fluence. I am, 

Yours respectfully, William Saunders. 



III. 

A Piece of Land. 

BY FRANCIS G. SHAW. 

Scene — A Common. Labor digging the grotind with a stick to pla7it 
potatoes. QA'PITAI^ passing with a spade on his shoulder. 

Labor. I say, Capital, shall you use your spade this 
year ? 

Capital. No, I'm going a-fishing. 

Labor. Lend it to me, then. 

Capital. Why should I ? 

Labor. As a good neighbor. You don't want it, and 
it would be a great help to me. I could plant more 
ground, and, perhaps, raise fifty more bushels of pota- 
toes, if I had it. 

Capital. That's a very one-sided reason. You'd wear 
it out by the end of the year. You'd have your fifty 
bushels extra, and I should have no spade. You'd be 
so much better off, and I should be so much worse off 
than I am now. There''s not much good neighborhood 
in that. 

Labor. Oh, I'd give it back to you just as good as it 
is now ; or I'd make a new one for you. 

[Note. — This is the necessary maintenance or replacement of capital 
which is consumed by use.] 

Capital. That's rather better, but still it's not fair. 
You'd have your fifty bushels more, which you couldn't 
have raised without my spade, while I should be no 
better off than I am now. No, thank you ! I'll keep 



A PIECE OF LAND. 299 

my spade. Go make one for yourself. It took me ten 
days to make this. 

Labor. Yes, but this is the season for planting, and 
I haven't the time to spare ; I want to use it now. I 
can't see why you shouldn't let me have it as well as 
leave it to rust, which it will since you're not going to 
use it. 

Capital. It's not going to rust. I'll tell you what I 
mean to do with it ; Farmer wants a spade as w^ell as 
you, and offers to give a yearling heifer in exchange 
for this one. I'm on my way now to make the swap, 
and get her. I shall turn her out on the common, and 
by the end of the year I shall have a cow with, perhaps, 
a calf by her side. Don't you think she'll be worth a 
good deal more than the new spade you offer ? 

[Note. — Capital proposes to take advantage of the active forces of 
nature which manifest themselves in the growth as well as in the produc- 
tiveness of land, and which can be made available by Labor, or by 
Capital, the result of Labor] 

Labor. Certainly she will. I never thought of that ! 
Yes; if you can swap your spade for the heifer, you've 
a right to as much return from one as from the other. 
But how much do you expect to gain if you do make 
the exchange ? 

Capital. I suppose quite as much as ten bushels of 
your potatoes will be worth when you dig them. 

Labor. I'll take the spade and give you a new one 
and ten bushels of potatoes. Will that satisfy you ? 

Capital. I've rather set my heart on the heifer, and, 
besides, your crop may fail. 

Labor. I hope not ; it never has. However, there is 
some little risk, I admit, and I'll give you twelve bush- 
els instead of ten. What do you say? 



3O0 A PIECE OF LAND. 

Capital. It's a bargain ! Here's the spade, and I'll 
go and see about my boat. 

[Note. — Thus Labor employs the wealth which Capital has accumu- 
lated by his past labor, and as both are interested in the crop, Labor 
and Capital become partners. The ten bushels which Capital is to 
receive for the use of the spade may be called interest, to which he is 
justly entitled, from his ability to exchange the spade for something which 
will give him an equal profit by its mere growth, and the other two bush- 
els are for insurance against the risk of a failure of the crop.] 

E??ter Landow^NER. 

Landowner [leaning over fence). Hullo, Labor ! What 
are you at work on that moorland for ? The soil is 
much better on this side of the fence. You can raise 
fifty bushels more potatoes here than you can there, 
with the same work. You'd much better hire this lot 
of me ; I wouldn't charge you much for the use of it. 

Labor. It's true that the soil is better, and I should 
plant there if you hadn't fenced it in ; but you know as 
well as I do that this common is free, and that every- 
thing I can raise on it is mine ; while if I should plant 
on that side of the fence you'd clap me into jail for 
trespassing, or else you'd let me raise a crop and then 
take all away from me, unless I came to your terms. 
The laws seem to be made for you landowners ! What 
right had you to fence in the best land ? It was all 
common once. If you were cultivating it, I wouldn't 
have a word to say ; your right to it is as good as mine, 
or that of anybody else ; but it's no better, and I don't 
see what right )^ou have to keep me off of it, when you 
don't want to cultivate it yourself. 

Landowner. I did cultivate it for some years, and I 
fenced it to keep the cattle away ; I hauled off the 
stone and drained it, and got good crops. 



A PIECE OE LAND. 301 

Labor. Did the crops repay you for what you laid 
out ? 

Landoivner. Pretty well, you may believe ; you don't 
suppose that I was such a fool as to make the improve- 
ments if I hadn't been sure of that. But I've got some 
better land that I mean to till this year, and I should like 
to let this lot to you at a fair rent. 

Labor. Yes ; I suppose you have taken the cream 
out of this. But what do you call a fair rent ? 

Landowner. Let me see ! The land is still a good 
deal better than the common, and easier to work than 
when. I enclosed it. The drains are there, and there 
are no stones on the ground ; besides, the fence is good 
for three years, and you'll have to fence your common 
lot if you want to make a crop. That's something for 
you to consider. These are real advantages. 

Labor. Yes, that's so. Well ! I think it will be 
fair if I agree to give you one-third the value of the 
fence ; say, ten bushels of potatoes, and five bushels 
more on account of the other improvements. 

Landowner. Will you keep the fence in as good re- 
pair as it is now ? 

Labor. No ; fifteen bushels is as much as I can afford 
to give. 

Landowner. And how much will you give for the use 
of the land ? 

Labor. Nothing whatever. I pay you so much for 
the use of your improvements, and that's so much gain 
to you, for you've already been well paid for them by 
the crops you've taken off, which have diminished the 
fertility of the soil. I'm willing to pay for the benefit 
I shall derive from them, and nothing else. If you 
won't let me have the land for the fifteen bushels, I'll 
stick to the common ; I can do about as well here. 



302 A PIECE OF LAND. 

But you haven't told me what right you had to fence 
in the best land, and call it yours ? 

Landowner. The king gave it to me. 

Labor. What right had the king to take away the 
people's land, and give it to you ? 

Landowner. No matter whether he had the right or 
not ; he had the might. The land is mine, and you 
cannot cultivate it without my permission. 

Labor. Well ! We won't discuss the question of 
right just now. Will you let me have the lot for the 
year at the price I offer ? 

Landowner. Yes ; you may have it. It's so much 
gain to me ; but if it wasn't for that confounded com- 
mon you should pay more. 



ANOTHER YEAR. 



{In the meanwhile Landowner has succeeded in getting 
through Parliament an Act authorizing him to enclose the 
common^ and has taken possession. He has accordingly 
fenced in the whole of it. Not against cattle this time, but 
against Labor.) 

Labor ^ going to landowner. Please, sir, as the com- 
mon is enclosed, I've now no free land to work upon, 
and I should be very glad to hire that same lot of you 
for another year. 

Landoimier. Humph ! You did pretty well on that 
lot last year, didn't you ? 

Labor. Yes, sir ! I was able to give Capital a new 
spade, besides paying him for the use of his ; and I 
had enough over to keep my family in comfort after 
paying you the rent. 



A PIECE OF LAND. 303 

Lajidowner. And you expect to get the land for the 
same rent this year ? 

Labor. I hope that you will let me have it on the 
same terms, sir. If I'm obliged to pay more I shall 
not be able to give Capital so much for the use of his 
spade, and my family will suffer for w^ant of the com- 
forts to which they have been accustomed. 

Landowner. That's none of my business. Capital 
must be content with a smaller return, and you must 
reduce the expenses of your family. There's no com- 
mon for you to cultivate now, or for him to pasture his 
heifer on. You must both of you cut your coat accord- 
ing to your cloth, and wear your old clothes when you 
have no cloth. 

Labor. I'm aware of that, sir, and can only hope tliat 
you will consider my circumstances. 

Landowner . What I shall consider will be my own in- 
terest. I shall manage my estate on strictly business 
principles. You paid me fifteen bushels of potatoes 
on account of my improvements last year. We agreed 
upon that as fair, didn't we ? 

Labor. Yes, sir. 

L^andowner. Well ! I'll be easy with you and charge 
you no more this year ; but you must keep the fence 
in repair. 

Labor. It will be very hard on me, sir ; taking so 
much from the support of my family, but I suppose 
that I must do as you say ; and if I must, I must. 

Landowner. Now how much will you agree to give 
me for the use of my land ? Last year you wouldn't 
give me anything, and I had to come to your terms, 
because you had the common to fall back upon. This 
year there's no common, and you've got to come to 
mine. 



304 ^ PIECE OF LAND. 

Labor. I hope, sir, that they will be such as to enable 
me to live and keep my family comfortably, which will 
be hard work enough now, with the additional work 
I'm obliged to put upon the fence. 

Landowner. Comfortably ! I don't know and I don't 

.care. You ought to be satisfied with the necessaries 

of life, and not talk about luxuries. But there's no use 

in wasting any more talk about the matter. The rent 

of the lot for this year is fifty bushels in all. 

Labor. But, sir — 

Landowner. But me no buts. That's the rent. 

Labor. We shall starve, sir, and then your land will 
be of no use to you. You must have somebody to cul- 
tivate it. 

Landowner. There's something in that; but, as I 
said, fifty bushels is the rent. You know that you must 
take the land at my price, and I know you'll make the 
shift to pull through. If you can't, and I find that you 
really haven't enough to live on, perhaps I'll not exact 
the whole of the rent, bat let a part remain in arrears, 
for you to make up when you have an extra good year, 
and I will give you some of the small potatoes in char- 
ity, to keep you alive and out of the poorhouse — where 
(aside) I should have to pay for the whole support of 
you and your family. 



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The plot shows discrimination of judgment as well as force of expression, 
and Its vigor of conception and brilliancy of description makes it one of his 
mo^t readable novels. 



THE HAUNTED HOUSE; 

Or, The House and the Brain, to which is added, Caldekon, the 

Courtier. 

By LORD LYTTON. 

1 vol . 12mo., large type, good paper, handsome covpr. 10 cents. 
This is a weird imaginative creation of singular power showing intensity of 
conception and a knowledge of the remarkable effects of spiritual infliiencts„ 
Full Descriptive Catalogue sent on application. 

JOHN W. LOVELL CO., Publishers, 

14 & 16 Vesey Street, Ne^v York, 



LOVELL'S LIBRARY ADVERTISER. 

EART AND SCIENCE. 

By WILKIE COLLINS. 

1 Vol., 12mo., clotTi, gilt $1.00 

1 " " paper 50 

Aiso in Loveira Library. No. 87 20 

" Benjulia" is a singularly interesting, and, in a way, fascinating creation. 
Mr. Collins can deal strongly "with, a st ong situation, but lie has done nothing 
more powerful than his sketch of Benjuha's last hours. Mr, Gallilee and Zoe 
are capital example-^ of genuine and unforced humor; and the book, as a 
whole, is thoroughly readable and enthralling from its first page to its last." — 
Academy. 

" Mr. Wilkie Collins' latest novel is certainly one of the ablest he has writ- 
ten. It is quite the equal of 'The Woman in White' and of 'The Moon- 
stone,' consequently it may truthfully be described as a masterpiece in the 
peculiar line of fiction in which Mr. Collins not only excels but distances every 
rival in tbe walk of literature he has marked out for himself. 'Heart and 
Science ' is in its way a great novel, certainly the best we have seen from Mr. 
Wilkie Collins since ' The Woman in White ' and ' Armada'e.' " — Morning Post. 

" We doubt whether the author has ever written a cleverer story. . . . An 
eloquent and touching tribute to the blessedness and power of a true and 
loving heart The book unites in a high degree the attractions of thrilling nar- 
rative and clever portraiture of character, of sound wia^om and real humor." — 
Congregatiotialist. 



By OUIDA. 

1 vol., 12mo., cloth, gilt $1.00 

1 " " paper 50 

Also in Lovells Library, No. 112, 2 parts, each 15 

"'Wanda' is the story by which Ouida will probably be judged by the 
literary hi-torian of the future, for it is di^^tinguished by all her high merits, 
and not disfigured by any one of her few defects. In point of construction this 
mo-<t recent contribution to the fictional literature of the day is perfect; the 
dialogues are both brilliant and stirring, and the descriptive passages are mas- 
terpieces. Ouida is seen at her brightest and be-^t in 'Wanda' the bork thriiis 
bv its dramatic interest, and delights by its singular freshness and unconven- 
tional style. There are no more attractive characters in English fiction than 
Wanda and her peasant husband, and increased fame n~aist result to the bril- 
liant novelist from this her latest work."- St. Stephen's Eevietv. 

" Wedo not know anything Oaida has done that equals this, her latest 
novel, in power of delineating character and describing scenery. Wanda is a 
fine, htgh-sonled character." — Citizen. 

'" A powerful and fascinating novel, deeply interesting, with excellent 
character portrayal, and written in that sparkling style for which Ouida is 
famous. ' Wanda ' deserves to take rank by the side of the best of her previous 
novels.'' — Darlington Post. 

"' Wanda ' contains much that is striking. The central idea is finely 
worked out. We have seen nothing from Ouida's pen thac sr rikes us as being, 
on the whole, so well conceived and so skilfully wrought ont.''''— Spectator . 

JOHN W. LOVELL CO., 

14 & 16 Vesey Street, IXTew York. 



LABOR and CAPITAL, 

— A— 

NKW MONETARY SYSTEM, 

By EDWARD KELLOGG. 

Edited bt his Daughter, Makv Kellogg Putnam. 



1 Vol., 12mo., Handsome Paper Cover, No. Ill of Lovell's 
Library, 20 Cents. 



" Labor and Capital " is a remarkable book. It shows how and why 
Capitalisls get bo large a part of the yearly productions of labor, and why the 
producers get so small a part. The first edition of tLis work was publistitd in 
1848, under the title of "Labor and Other Capital; or, the rights of each fee- 
cured and the wrongs of both eradicated." At tbat time the publication of 
6uch a work by a rich and prosperous merchant of New York created consider- 
able excitement and discussion among political economists. The author was 
a man of deep perception, and, iu the etate of the country, he foresaw wiih 
clearness all that has tran.'rpi ed iu our financial history, during the past thiny 
years, if the system elaborated by Mr. Kellogg had been fully, instead of 
partially, adopted by Congress, the various steps which have been taken in uie 
application of his theory would all have been antic pated. Mr. Keilogg be- 
lieved that the Government of the United States should issue all money or 
currency that should be alio we 1 to go into circulation. The present United 
States Treasury Note is a partial exemplification of this plan. The whole 
work has such an important bearing upon the financial and political state of 
the country to day that the publishers are justified in issuing it in a cheap 
form, thus placing it within the reach of all who are interested in the indus- 
trial problem. • 

A Characteristic Letter From 

ENDEI-L PHILLIPS, 

Boston, Mat 25th, 1883. 
Mb. John W. Lovell, 

Dear Sir :— 1 am (am I ?) indebted to you for a copy of your reprint of 
"Labor and Capital," by Kellogg; one of the ablest and must convincing 
statements of the Financial Problem ever made; and proposing with unanswer- 
able argument, the easiest, if not theonly remedy for our troubles and dangers. 
I am glad that the loving devotion and rare ability of his daushter has made 
the work so perfect and clear in statement. She aeserves well of the students 
of this question and has their gratitude. 

Yours respectfully, 

Wendell Phillips. 

For sale by all booksellers and newsdealers, or sent post paid on receipt of 
25 cents, by the publishers, 

JOHN W. LOYELL COMPANY, 

•14, 6c 16 Vesey Street. New York. 



"The Most Popular Books of the Baj." 



Works of ''The Duchess," 

PUBLISHED BY 

JOHN W. LOVELL COMPANY, 

14 &. 16 Yesey St., New York. 

PHYLLIS. 

1 Vol., 12 mo., handsome clofh, gilt, $1.00. The same in paper, 50 cents. 
Also, in Lovjsll's Library, No. 78, 20 cents, 

"Itis facinatiug to a high degree * * * We lay aside the bjok 
with a sigh of regret that the pleasure is over, after mingling our laughter and 
tears with the varying fortunes of the charming heroine." — ^V^. Y. Evening 
Mail. 

"Certainly 'Phyllis' is one of the most fascinating little novels that has 
appeared this year. — New Orleans Times. 



MOLLY BAWN. 

1 Vol., 12 mo., handsome cloth, gilt, $1.00. The same in paper, 50 cents. 
Also, in Lovell's Library, No. 76, 20 cents. 
" Is really an attractive novel. Full of wit, spirit and gayety, the book con- 
t tins, nevertheless, touches of the most exquisite pathos. There is plenty of 
fun and humor which never degenerates into vulgarity. All women will envy, 
and all men fall in love with her. Higher praise we surely cannot give." — 
London Athemjeuftn, 



AIRY FAIRY LILIAN. 

1 Vol., 12mo., m handsome cloth, gilt, $1.00. The same in paper, 50 cents. 
Als ), in LOVELLS Library, No 92, 20 cents. 

" The airiest and most spartling contribution of the month is the brilliant 
romance by the author of ' Phyllis.' It is as full of variety and refreshment as 
a bright and changeful June morning. Its narrative is animated, its dinlogue 
crisp and spirited, its tone pure and wholesome, and its characters are grace- 
fully contrasted. ''—Harper s Magazine. 



1 Vol., 12mo., in handsome cloth, gilt, $1.00. The same in paper, 50 cents. 
Also, in LovELL s Library, No. 9J, 20 cents. 

" The chi'.f charm of the book is the beautiful yonng Irish girl, Mona Scully. 
Mrs. Geoffrey, whose naturalness, joyousness, true-heartedness, and right- 
mindedness are as welcome as a morning in Spring, or a breath of fresh air 
from the sea. She is au embodiment of health, humor and love, and unless we 
are greatly mistaken she will long be remembered by the readers of coniem- 
porary fiction."— A^. Y. Evening Mail. 

JOHN W, LOVELI, CO., Publishers, 

14 & 16 Vesey Street, ISTe^v "^iTork. 



JUST PUBLISHED. 



"BEYOND TF[E SUNRISE" 

Observations by Two Travelers, 

1 Yol. i2mo, cloth, gilt, UM 

1 YoL 12mo, paper, °.50 

Also ir LoYell's Library, No. 169, - . - - .20 



Tlib subjects treated in this Yolume, which is tlis pro- 
duction of two well known American writers, are Psycliology, 
OlairYoyance and Theosophy. In the form of sketclies they 
outline the philosophy of Psychology, and relate phenomena 
wholly outside of, and apart from Spiritualism, with Y/liich it 
i? associated in the popular mind in this country. These two 
writers liaYe much to say regarding Occultism and Theosophy; 
and, in a word, discuss the science of the soul in all its bear- 
ings. ISTo more interesting book has CYcr appeared on these 
subjects. Much personal experience, which is always interest- 
ing, is giYcn in its pages; and the authors who liaYC choser 
to be anonymous, haYe had remarkable results in their stud]; 
of Spiritualism and ClairYoyancy, and are adepts in Psycho- 
logical researches. 

From all the Yaried aYcnues in which they haYe Yrciked 
?o perscYcringly, they haYe brought together a highly grati- 
fying mass of material. The Yolume is one in which agnostics^ 
spiritualists, orthodox and scientific minds generally, Yvill be 
deeply interested ; and it is written in so earnest and frank a 
spirit, and in language so clear and graceful, that " Beyond 
ihe Sunrise," Ydll Y/in a Y^elcome in eYcry houselioldc It will 
//T A good cheer and inspiration whercYer it is read. 

Sent free, by post, on receipt of price. 

JOHH 77. L07ELL CO., PulDlisliers, 

14 and IG Vesey Street ^ Neiv ^crfcc 



WOMAN'S Place To-day. 

Four lectures in reply to the Lenten leetures ou "Woman." by the Rev. 
Morgan Dix, D.D., of Trinity Church, New York. 

By Liliie Devereux Blake. 

Noo 104, LOVELiIi'S L,IBRARY, Paper Co\'ers, 20 Cents, 
Ciotli Liiiup; 50 Cents. 

Mrs. Liliie Devereux Blake last evening entertainod an audience that filled 
Frobisber'e Hall, in East FourLeenik Street, by a wilty und sarcastic handling 
of the recent Lenten talk of the Rev. Dr. Morgan Dix on the follies of wonieii 
of society. — Neiv York Times, 

Mrs. Liliie Devereux Blake is a very eloquent lady, and a thorn in the side 
of the Eev. Dr. Dix, and gentlemen who, like him, presume to say that woman 
is not man's equal, if not his superior. Mrs. Blake in her reply to Dr. Dlx's 
recent lecture upon. "Divorce, ' m ide some interesting remarks upon the sex 
to which she has the honor to belong. — Neio York Commercial Advertiser. 

There is no denying' that Mrs. B'.ake has, spait-an-like,s'tJOd as a break-water 
to the eurf^ing flood Rector Dix has cast upon the eo-called weaker sex with 
the hope of engulfing it. It is Bad to see a gentleman in the position Dr. Dix 
occupies setting himself deliberately at work to not only bring reproach upon 
the female sex, but to make ns all look withcomtempt upon our mothers aud 
sisters. And the worst of his case is that he has shown that spirit in the male 
part of mankind, which IS not at all creditable to it, of depreciating the in- 
tellect, the judgment, the abilit}' and the capability of the female sex in order 
to elevate to a higher plane the male sex. According to Dr. Dix the world 
would be better were there no more female children born. And he makes 
this argument iu the face of the fact that there would be "hell upon earth"' 
were it not for the influence of women, and such women as Mrs. Liliie Devereux 
Blake, especially. — Albany Sunday Fress. 



Mrs. Blske's was the most interesting and spicy speech of the evening. She 
was in a sparkling mood and hit at everything and everybody tnac came to 
her mind.— y/ig Ecenincf Telegram, N. Y. 

A stately lily of a woman, with delicate features, a pair of great gray eyes that 
dila'^e as she speaks till they light her whole face like two great soft stars. — Ihe 
Independent, N. Y. 

* * * tihe advanced to the front of the platform, gesticulated gracefully 
and spoke vigorously, d iiaaiily and without notes. — 2^'ew York Citizen. 

* * * amost eloiiuent and polished '^ration. The peroration Wi.s a grand 
bur^t of eloquence. — Troy Times. 

Liliie Devereux Blake, blonde, brilliant, rtaccate, stylish, i*? a fluent speaker, 
of good platform presence, and argued wittily aud v>k\\.— ^yas]L^ugion Foet. 

There are very few speakers on the platform who fca'Ctlie brightness, 
vivacity and fluency of Liliie Devereux BlR^ki^.—Albayiy Svnday frefs. 

She is an easy, graceful speaker, and wide-awake withal, bringing our fre- 
quent applause. — Hartford Times, 

Mrs. Blake s address was for..ible and eloquent. The speaker was frequently 
interrupted by applause. — Neio York Times. 

The most brilliant lady speaker in tlie city. — N'ew York U^-rrrhL 

Has the reputation of being the wittiest woman on the pULlorm.— /Sczfi An- 
tonio Exp?'ess. 

Mrs. Blako, who has a most pleading addrf<=?, thf^n pp'^ke; a r/rong vein of 
sarcasm, wit and humor pervaded me iad/'ii i\:uis.vks.—F'oug/ike£pdie Kews, 

For Sale by all Newsdealers and Booksellers 

JOHN W, LOVELL CO., Publishers, 
14 & 16 Vesey Street, New l^orko 



\^Fro7n the Boston Globe. '\ 

Since Mrs. Frank Leslie assumed the sole manage- 
ment, the brilliancy and success of the Leslie pub- 
lications have won for them even greater popularity 
than they previously had. Her editorial ability is 
granted by the press, and is shown in the variety 
and excellence of the matter promptly placed by 
her before the public. It is her policy to produce 
at the earliest possible moment, regardless of ex- 
pense, whatever of moment takes place in any section 
of this countiy. She relies for assistance upon a 
corps of the best artists, who, with pencil and pen, 
are scattered here and there to illustrate the most 
interesting scenes. Each issue of Frank Leslie's 
Illustrated Newspaper faithfully pictures the most 
important events, and a bound volume is an in- 
valuable history of the yean 



FOR THE BRAIN AND NERVES. 




CROSBY'S VITALIZED FHOS-PHITES. 



treat 



This is a standard preparation with all physicians who 
ner"^ous and mental disorders. 

Crosby's Vitalized Flios-^pMtes hhould he taken as a Special 
Brain Food. 

I'd build up worn-oiit nerves, to banish sleeplessness, neu- 
ralgia and sick headache. — Dr. Owynn. 

To PROMOTE .good digestion. — I)r. Filmore. 

To " STAMP OUT " consumption. — Dr. Ghurchill. 

To " coMPLETLY cure night sweats." — John B. Quigley. 

To MAINTAIN the capabilities of the brain and nerves to per- 
form all functions even at the highest tension. — E. L. Kellogg. 

To RESTORE the energy lost by nervousness, debility, over- 
exertion or enervated vital powers. — Dr. W. 8. Wells. 

To BEPAIR, the nerves that have been enfeebled by worry, de- 
pression, anxiety or deep griet.—Miss Mary RanMn. 

To STRENGTHEN the intellect so that study and deep mental 
application may be a pleasure and not a trial. — B. M. Couch. 

To DEVELOP good teeth, glossy hair, c'ear skin, handsome nails 
in the young, so that they may be an inheritance in later years. — 
Editor School Journal. 

To ENLARGE the Capabilities for enjoyment. — National Journal 
of Education. 

To "make life a pleasure," "not a daily suffering." *'I 
really urge you to put it to the test." — Miss Emily Faithfull. 

To AMPLIFY bodily and mental power to the present genera- 
tion and "prove the survival of the fittest" to the next.— .F^STwarc^. 

There is no other Vital Phos-phite, none that is extracted 
from living animal and vegetable tissues. -~i>r. Gasper, 

To restore lost powers and abiUties. — Dr. Bull. 

For sale by druggists or mail, $1. 
F. CROSBY CO., No. 56 West Twenty-fifth St., New York. 







P' 



18 1^ 



LOVELL'S LIBRARY-CATALOGUE. 



Mysterious Island, PtII.15 

Mysterious Island,PtIII.i5 
. Tom Brown at Oxford, 

2 Parts, each 15 

. Thiqkerthan Water.... 20 

. In Silk Attire .20 

i. Scottish Chiefs, Part I.. 20 

Scottish Chiefs, Part II. 20 

,. Willy Reilly 20 

.The Nautz Family 20 

;. Great Expectations 20 

,. Hist.of Pendennis,Pt I..20 

Hist.of PendennisjPt II 20 
:. Widow Bedott Papers ..20 
;. Daniel Deronda,Part I.. 20 

Daniel Deronda, Part 1 1. 20 

i. Altiora Peto 30 

'. By the Gate of the Sea. 15 

;, Tales of a Traveller 20 

). Life and Voyages of Co- 
lumbus, 2 Parts, each . 20 
). The Pilgrim's Progress. .20 
[. Martin Chuzzlewit,P'rt 1.20 

MartinChuzzlewit,P't II. 20 

>. Theophrastus Such 10 

5. Disarmed 15 

t. Eugene Aram 20 

;. The Spanish Gypsy, &C.20 
3. Cast up by the Sea .... . . 20 

7. Mill on the Floss, Part T.15 

Mill on the Floss, P't II . 15 

3. Brother Jacob, etc 10 

9. The Executor 20 

D. American Notes 15 

The Newcomes, Part I.. 20 
The Newcomes, Part II. 20 

The Privateersman 20 

The Three Feathers 20 

4. Phantom Fortune 20 

5. The Red Eric 20 

6. Lady Silverdale's Sweet- 
heart. 70 

7. The Four Macnicol's ... 10 
8.Mr.PisistratusBrow.n,M.P,io 

9. Dombeyand Son, Part I.20 
Dombey and Son, Part II. 20 

b. Book of Snobs 10 

1. Fairy Tales, Illustrated. . 20 

2. The Disowned 20 

3. Little Dorrit, Part 1 20 

Little Dorrit, Part II 20 

4. Abbotsford and New- 

stead Abbey 10 

5. Oliver Goldsmith, Blaclc 10 

,6. The Fire Brigade 20 

7. Rifle and Hound in Cey- 
lon 20 

:8. Our Mutual Friend,P't I.20 

OurMutualFriend,P't 11.20 

g. Paris Sketches 15 

10. Belinda 20 

;i. Nicholas Nickleby,P't 1. 20 

NicholasNickleby,P't II. 20 
2. Monarch of Mincing 

Lane 20 

13. ^ight Years' Wanderings 

in Ceylon 20 

!4. Pictures from Italy 15 

J15. Adventures of Philip, Pt 1. 15 
Adventures of Philip, Pt 1 1. 15 
;6. Knickerbocker History 
of New York 20 



237. The Boy at Mugby 10 

238. The Virginians, Part I.. 20 
The Virginians, Part II. 20 

239. Erling the Bold 20 

240. Kenelm Chillingly 20 

241. Deep Down 20 

242. Samuel Brohl & Co 20 

243. Gautran 20 

244. Bleak House, Part I 20 

Bleak House, Part II ...20 

245. What Will He Do With 

It ? 2 Parts, each 20 

246.SketchesofYoungCouples.10 

247. Devereux 20 

248. Life of Webster, Part 1. 15 
Life of Webster, Pt. II. 15 

249. The Crayon Papers 20 

250. The Caxtons, Part I 15 

The Caxtons, Part II ... 15 

251. Autobiography of An- 

thoriy Trollope 20 

252. Critical Reviews, etc. ... 10 

253. Lucretia ..20 

254. Peter the Whaler 20 

255. Last of the Barons. Pt 1. 15 
Last of the Barons,Pt.II.i5 

256. Eastern Sketches . ._ 15 

257. All in a Garden Fair 20 

258. File No. 113 20 

259. The Parisians, Part I . . .20 
The Parisians, Part 1 1.. 20 

260. Mrs. Darling's Letters. . .20 

261. Master • Humphrey's 
Clock 10 

262. Fatal Boots, etc 10 

263. The Alhambra 15 

264. The Four Georges 10 

265. Plutarch's Lives, 5 Pts. fi. 

266. Under the Red Flag 10 

267. TheHaunted House, etc. 10 
26S. When the Ship Comes 

Home • 10 

269. One False, both Fair 20 

270. The Mudfog Papers, ef CIO 
771. My Novel, 3 Parts, each.20 

272. Conquest of Granada. ..20 

273. Sketches by Boz 20 

274. A Christmas Carol, etc 15 

275. lone Stewart 20 

276. Harold, 2 Parts, each. . . 15 

277. Dora Thome 20 

278. Maid of Athens. 20 

279. Conquest of Spain 10 

280. Fitzboodle Papers, etc .. i o 

281. BracebridgeHall 20 

2S2. Uncommercial Traveller.20 

283. Roundabout Papers 20 

284. Rossmoyne 20 

285. A Legend of the Rhine, 

etc 10 

286. Cox's Diary, etc 10 

287. Beyond Pardon 20 

2S8. Somebody'sLuggage,etc. 10 

289. Godolphin.. 20 

290. Salmagundi 20 

291. Famous Funny Fellows. 20 

292. Irish Sketches, etc 20 

293. The Battle of Life, etc.. . 10 

294. Pilgrims of the Rhine. . . 15 

295. Random Shots 20 

296. Men's Wives 10 

297. Mystery of Edwin Drood.20 



298. Reprinted Pieces 20 

299. Astoria ....20 

300. Novels by Eminent Handsio 

301. Companions of Columbus20 

302. No Thoroughfare lo 

303 . Character . Sketches, etc . 10 

304. Christmas Books 20 

305. A Tour on the Prairies... 10 

306. Ballads 15 

307. Yellowplush Papers 10 

308. Life of Mahomet, Part 1. 15 
Life of Mahomet, Pt. II.is 

309. Sketches and Travels in 

London 10 

310. Oliver Goldsmith,Irving.20 

311. Captain Bonneville .... 20 

312. Golden Girls 20 

313. English Humorists 15 

314. Moorish Chronicles 10 

315. Winifred Power 20 

316. Great HoggartyDiamond 10 

317. Pausanias 15 

318. The New Abelard 20 

3 19. A Real Queen 20 

320. The Rose and the Ring.20 

321. Wolf ert's Roost and Mis- 

cellanies, by Irving' • • • 10 

322. Mark Seaworth 20 

323. Life of Paul Jones 20 

324. Round the World 20 

325. Elbow Room 20 

326. The Wizard's Son 25 

327. Harry Lorrequer 20 

328. How It AU Came Round.20 

329. Dante Rosetti's Poems. 20 

330. The Canon's Ward 20 

331. Lucile, by O. Meredith. 20 

332. Everjr Day Cook Book . . 20 

333. Lays of Ancient Rome. . 20 

334. Life of Bums. 20 

335. The Young Foresters. .. 20 

336. John Bull andHis Island 20 

337. Salt Water, by Kingston. 20 

338. The Midshipman 20 

339. Proctor's Poems 20 

340. Clayton's Rangers 20 

341. Schiller's Poems -20 

342. Goethe's Faust ao 

343. Goethe's Poems 20 

344. Life of Thackeray 10 

345. Dante's Vision of Hell, 
Purgatory and Paradise.. 20 

346. An Interesting Case 20 

347. Life of Byron, Nichol... 10 
34S. Life of Bunyan 10 

349. Valerie's Fate 10 

350. Grandfather Lickshingle.2o 

351. La3's of the Scottish Ca- 

valiers 20 

352. Willis' Poems 20 

353. Tales of the French Re- 

volution 15 

354. Loom and Lugger ... ...20 

355. More Leaves from a Life 

in the Highlands 15 

356. Hvgiene of the Brain. ..25 

357. Berkeley the Banker 20 

358. Homes Abroad 15 

359. Scott's Lady of the Lake, 

with notes....... 20 

360. Modem Christianity a 
civilized Heathenism. . . . tg 



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^*^0ap] mmfc_faajcons'i3ered ,39 

^fflergyman who recorrmren^ 

moral tWfip should be -willing 

to ■Ecommendf^'^ap^ I airt 

^tHtftsern^commSiaatiOn df,! 

a Jarge isale ia th'e(Sluite4^tafts^ 

affi, "willing TO stand by every word an 

fa^OTofitfhatleverattereii A man 

- -tnosJ ba jkstidious indeed ■^ylfi> ia jiq6 




A SpecialtF for tie SMii & Cofflplexion. 

As recommended by the greatest English authority on the Skin, 

Prof. SIR EEASMUS WILSON, F.E.S. 

Pres, of the Royal Col. of Surgeons, England. 

Nothing adds so much to personal appearance as a Briglitj Olear 
Complexion, and. a Soft Skin. With these the plainest 
features become attractive. Without them the handsomest are but coldly impressive. 

Many a compkiciQn is marred by impure alkaline and Colored ToUet Soap. 

J, 






Is specially prepared for the delicate skin of ladies and children and Other sensitive 
to the weather, winter or summer. In England it is pre-eminently the complexion 
Soap, and is recommended by all the best authorities, as on account of its emollient, 
non-irritant character, Iie«in.ess, K-ongliness axid Oliap- 
ping are pre^s^ent^ed, and a clear and T^rl^lit; 
appearan.ce and a soft, vel-vety condition im- 
parted and main^tain.ed, an.d a good, liealtlifm 
and attracti"ve complesiion en.snred. 

Its agreeable and lasting perfume, beautiful appearance, and soothing prop- 
erties commend it as the greatest luxury of the toilet. Its durability and consequent 
economy is remarkable. 

ITERNATIOWAL AWARI 



